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The Classified Lists, arranged under about 500 subject-headings, in- 



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f UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, t 

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SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



BY 



J. E. THOROLD ROGERS, 

Tooke Professor op Economic Science, University of Oxford. 



REVISED FOR AMERICAN READERS^ 



3 




NEW YORK : 
G P. PUTNAM & SONS, 
Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. 
1872. 



HBii 



MIDDLETON & CO., STEEEOTYPEF.S, 
BEIDGEPOET, CONN. 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION, 



Ik preparing this volume for American Students, I 
have made no changes in the original plan, and have 
not pretended to add any thing to the clear and satisfac- 
tory text of the author. I have merely translated his 
references to currency, measurements, trades, etc., from 
the English to the American terms, and changed some 
of the more important illustrations, so as to make them 
apply to American circumstances. I do not of course 
suppose that the American boy who will read this vol- 
ume, does not understand what is meant by a pound 
sterling, or a stone weight, but as the lesson to be taught 
is one of principles, and not of comparative values, I 
think the changes I have made will save him from giving 
time to any unnecessary details. 

The spirit and purpose of the book are excellent, 
and its teachings combine to a rare degree, simplicity 
and thoroughness. A full understanding of the princi- 
ples it explains, will give to our young American stu- 
dents the basis of the knowledge that is indispensable 
for the clear-headed citizens and wise legislators, they 
should aim to become. 



June, 1872. 



a. h. p. 



PB JE FA GE, 



The object of this little book is to give instruction 
in the rudiments of social science, and to do so in such 
language and in such a form as will make the subject 
clear to the youngest students. The author has stated 
what he has to say in the shape of a series of lessons, 
each of which should be carefully read and understood 
before the pupil passes on to the next. It is hoped that 
when he has read through the whole, he will have got 
some insight into the laws which regulate social life. 

It does not follow that knowledge will make the 
person who possesses it discreet and wise ; but no person 
will be discreet and wise without knowledge. After 
that training which is necessary for each person in order 
that he may earn his living, no knowledge can be more 
usefully turned to account than that which explains the 
circumstances under which men live together in a civil- 
ized society, and confer benefits on each other. It is 
this knowledge which the author hopes to have given 
in the following pages. 



Oxford, Dec. i, 1871. 



CONTENTS. 

LESSON I. 

PAGE. 

Savage and Civilized Life . 11 

LESSON n. 

A Loaf of Bread ......... 15 

LESSON nx 

The Sharing of the Loaf — Rent . . . . . ,19 
LESSON IV. 

The Share of the Workman 23 

LESSON V. 

The Course of Improvement ...... 27 

LESSON VL 

Variety of Employments 31 

lesson vn. 

Various Rates of Wages ........ 36 

LESSON VHX 

Unpaid Work 40 



8 CONTENTS. 



LESSON IX. 

PAGE. 

Motives for Labor 44 

LESSON X. 

Partnerships of Labor 49 

LESSON XL 

The Right of the Seller to fix a Price 53 

LESSON XII. 

The Employer's Wages ....... 58 

lesson xni. 

The Use of Gold and Silver .62 

LESSON XIV. 

Money ........... 66 

LESSON XV. 

Substitutes for Money 71 

LESSON XVI. 

Freedom and Slavery ........ 75 

LESSON XVII. 
Parent and Child 80 

LESSON xvm. 

Public Education 84 

LESSON XIX. 

Special Learning 89 



CONTENTS. 9 

PAGE, 

• LESSON XX. 
Inventions and Books . . . . . . . . 94 

LESSON XXI. 

Restraints on Buving and Selling 99 

LESSON XXIL 
Public Charities 104 

LESSON XXIII. 
The Work of Government . . 109 

LESSON XXIV. 
Taxes . . . . . . . . . . 113 

LESSON XXV. 

What do Taxes come from ? ...... 117 

LESSON XXVI. 
The Punishment of Crime . . . . . . 121 

LESSON XXVH. 
The Principle of Punishment ...... 126 

LESSON XXVHI. 
Restraints on Freedom 130 

LESSON XXIX. 
Restraints on Callings * . . . . • . .134 

LESSON XXX. 
Laws Fixing Prices ........ 188 

1* 



10 CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

LESSON XXXI. 
Regulations on Professions 142 

LESSON xxxn. 

Forbidden Callings 147 

LESSON XXXHI. 
Callings which are under a Police • • • • 152 

LESSON XXXIV. 
Poor-Laws •••••••••• 156 

LESSON XXXV. 
The Protection of the Weak 160 

LESSON XXXVI 
Emigration • • • • • 164 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



LESSON L 

SAVAGE AXD CIVILIZED LIFE, 

Few of the readers of this book have not seen a 
town, and most of them have probably lived in or visit- 
ed the larger towns or cities. 

But nearly all American boys and girls will know 
that a little more than two centuries ago, there were 
not any cities or towns on this continent, and the people 
who lived on it, the Indians, wandered about the coun- 
try, chasing the wild animals, or fishing, or digging roots, 
in order to get food, 

In other countries, such as England, France, or Ger- 
many, the time when there were no towns was a good 
deal further back, but in them also some centuries ago, 
people had to get their living by hunting or fishing, or 
by pasturing such flocks and herds as they possessed 
wherever they could find grass for them to live upon. 

In those old days the people who could get their liv- 
ing in a country like England for instance, by the chase 
or by pasturing cattle, were very few, not more indeed 
than could be reckoned in a middle-sized town at the 
present day. Few as they were, they were all that could 
live. If the summer was very dry, or the spring very 



12 SOCIAL ECONOMY. 

backward, many were starved. The whole of England 
and Wales in those ancient times did not maintain a 
hundredth part of the number who live in it at present, 
and did not maintain this hundredth part as securely and 
as comfortably as every Englishman is maintained now. 
There are parts of the world where the inhabitants live 
just as our forefathers lived in England ages ago, such as 
the Indian territories of the United States, the greater 
part of Africa, and large tracts in Asia. 

The inhabitants of these scantily settled and unculti- 
vated countries are said to be savages. Those who live 
in countries settled and civilized like our own are said 
to be civilized. The savage is poor, ignorant, and lives 
from day to day. The civilized man is, in compari- 
son at least, rich, wise, and has made some provision 
for the future. What are the causes which make so 
great a difference between the condition of the savage 
and that of the civilized man ? 

I purpose in this little book to give an account of 
some among the causes which make this mighty differ- 
ence. I cannot give them all, for if I tried to do so 
the book would not be little, and what is perhaps more 
to the purpose, I should mix up things which had better 
be kept separate. For example, good and just laws, 
wise and fair government on the part of rulers, virtuous 
and honest action on the part of subjects, are powerful 
causes of civilization. But I am not writing a book 
about law, or government, or moral conduct : I shall 
only try to show what is the reason why a hundred civ- 
ilized people can live on the space of ground which will 
hardly keep one savage alive ; why it is civilized people 
can live together in great towns, and are the better for 
their neighbors, while a savage man is anxious to have as 



SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED LIFE. 



13 



few neighbors near him as possible. Stated in a very 
few words, the savage is obliged to do every thing for 
himself, and the civilized man is able to get an infinite 
number of things done for him. 

The principal necessaries of life are food, clothing, 
lodging. If we add to these the means of moving from 
place to place, we shall find that most labor is given 
with a view to satisfying those wants, either immediate- 
ly or indirectly. For example, a farmer who sows a 
field with wheat is immediately engaged in the supply 
of food, while the smith who constructs a plough is in- 
directly concerned with the same service. There is the 
same difference between one who shears wool, or grows 
cotton, and another who makes the weaving machine 
wherewith to spin either substance into cloth. 

The savage man has to provide himself with food, 
and with the implements or weapons necessary to obtain 
food, to make himself clothing, and to manufacture the 
tools needed for piecing the skins together which he 
wears. But the civilized man gets his fellow-man to do 
a vast number of these services for him, and does some 
service himself, in return for which he is able to get such 
conveniences as he requires. And he gets what he 
needs more regularly, more easily, more plentifully, and 
more cheaply than he would if he lived a savage life. 

As the civilized man gets what he wants more cheap- 
ly than a savage does, so he gets it more regularly. A 
great city like New York depends for its food, for the 
materials of the clothes which its inhabitants wear, and 
of the houses in which they live, on other regions. 
It is. so to speak, wholly dependent on other places for 
all which its inhabitants need. But it gets them regu- 
larly — with the exactness and precision, as people say. 



14 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



of clockwork. The case is very different with those 
who live a savage life, or even with those who are only 
partly civilized. Such people are liable to sudden ca- 
lamities. A famine comes, and half the people perish : 
sickness overtakes them, and the same result ensues. 

Again, you will see people going out to their work 
— engaged in the business of their shops and counting 
houses — occupied in a number of different industries. 
They are eager in carrying on their calling, and have 
no anxiety, except as to the best way to do that which 
lies before them. But in countries where men do not 
understand the laws which are needful for the security 
of society, violence breeds suspicion and fear, and men 
are hindered in their calling by the necessity of defend- 
ing themselves. 

It is plain, then, that there are conditions of human 
life where men are unskilful; where the means of life 
are irregular ; where labor, unless the workman carries 
arms and is suspicious and watchful, is wholly unsafe. 
Now the discovery of the means by which the largest 
number of persons can live in the greatest plenty, can 
look forward to the greatest regularity, and can do their 
work in the greatest safety, is the object of what is called 
" social science." 



LESSON II. 



A LOAF OF BREAD. 

If you take a loaf of bread, and think of the persons 
who are set to work in order to produce or supply that 
loaf, you will find that the number of such persons is very 
large. The three principal persons are the farmer, the 
miller, and the baker. But the farmer almost always em- 
ploys labor, both of man and beast, in order to get his crop 
in. He also uses implements which are made by the la- 
bor of the carpenter, the smith, and in our time by the ma- 
chinist, for the employment of finished machines in hus- 
bandry is becoming very common. The presence of the 
smith calls into activity the work of those who raise iron 
and coal. Another kind of skill is needed in order to 
work iron and coal profitably — to direct the labor of those 
who are engaged in those industries. 

Again, the miller requires the service of those who 
quarry to supply him with the best stones with which to 
grind his flour — that of the weaver to supply him with the 
cloth, or of the worker in metals, who manufactures the 
metal sieve through which the flour is sifted, and of anoth- 
er kind of weaver, who makes the sack in which both corn 
and flour are stored. The mill in which he carries on his 
work is the product of another set of laborers — the car- 
penter, the joiner, the wheelwright, the mason, the brick- 



16 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



layer. If the power which he employs is water, a special 
kind of skill is needed in order to use the force of run- 
ning or falling water ; if it be wind, he will want the ser- 
vices of the weaver of such cloth as catches the wind ; 
if it be steam, a still more numerous and more scientific 
class of workmen must be employed. 

The baker, again, needs his assistants before he can 
carry on his calling. If he prepares his bread in wooden 
vessels, he calls in the help of the cooper. The brick- 
maker or quarryman supplies the bricks or stones of which 
his oven is built ; or in case the oven be made of iron, the 
miner and the smith must work to get the materials and 
fashion them. If the bread be baked in some shape or 
mould, other kinds of labor are needed. If it be made 
by machinery — as the best bread is now made — another 
set of persons is called on to exercise their industry. If 
the baker weighs his bread before he sells it — as he is 
bound to do — another set of persons supplies the weights 
and scales ; and so on with the materials of which those 
implements are made. 

For reasons which will be given further on, it is not 
found possible to carry out their transactions without 
money. Money is made of metals, which are, for the most 
part, discovered and worked in distant and barren re- 
gions. Here, then, is another field of labor. The miner 
is supported by food and other necessaries, w T hich are car- 
ried to him in ships. The building of a ship calls into ac- 
tivity a whole host of industries, many of which the ex- 
perience or knowledge of my readers will remind them 
of. When the gold and silver are brought to this country, 
other people must be set to work, in order that the met 
als may be refined, cut into pieces, and stamped as coins ; 
and a very nice and delicate process the work of coining is 



A LOAF OF BREAD. 



17 



Now I have only named a few of those persons who 
are engaged in producing a very simple necessary of 
life. 

But besides those who labor mostly with their hands, 
there is another class of men who labor mostly with their 
heads — the class of employers or, as they are sometimes 
called, capitalists. These men are engaged in directing 
the labor of others, or in studying the market, and in 
keeping up a continual supply of goods at as steady a 
price as possible. Unless persons were found to devote 
themselves to trade, the advantage of a steady, regular 
supply of the necessaries and conveniences of life would 
not be forthcoming. 

I said above that a savage was ignorant. He is a 
savage because he is ignorant. It would be impossible 
to keep the advantages of civilization unless each succes- 
sive generation were taught. If any society of men 
were to resolve not to give any instruction to their 
children — not to communicate to their descendants what 
they know themselves, such a society would in a short 
time relapse into the condition of savages. Nations are 
civilized because they inherit the knowledge as well as 
the property of their ancestors. Some of this knowl- 
edge is imparted by the skilled workman, either with or 
without the formality of apprenticeship; but a great 
deal of the knowledge is given by the schoolmaster, who 
therefore discharges a most important duty to future so- 
ciety. 

There are, then, a very large number of persons en- 
gaged in producing and supplying a loaf of bread. 

Perhaps my readers will wish to know why it is that 
I have chosen a loaf of bread in order to illustrate the 
great fact, that a civilized society is united by the mu- 



18 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



tual services which its several members render to each 
other. 

I began by stating that the same space of earth could 
maintain a hundred times more civilized people than it 
could savages ; in other words, it produces a hundred 
times more food besides producing it with far greater 
regularity. The number of people who can live in any 
country or in any town is measured by the number of 
loaves which this people can produce or can purchase. 
If the whole of America were as densely peopled as 
New York is, it would not contain too many persons, 
provided those who lived in it could procure necessary 
sustenance. There is, then, a great deal to be learnt 
from a loaf of bread. 



lesson m. 



THE SHARING OF THE LOAF— REXT. 

Every one of the persons who assists in supplying a 
loaf of bread is paid out of the price of the loaf. The 
portion which some of these persons receive is, no 
doubt, excessively small, but still it is received. The 
price is said to be distributed among the several persons 
who contribute towards the loaf. A portion of the 
price, however, is paid to one person who does not con- 
tribute any thing ; this is the person who owns the land. 
It must not be supposed that he has no right to get it ; 
it is impossible to prevent his having it. If any other 
person— whether it be the community at large or the 
farmer who occupies the land — were to take this por- 
tion, it would only mean that the community made 
itself the landowner, or that the farmer was turned into 
a landowner. 

Let us see how this comes to pass. "We shall be 
able to discover it more easily, if we take the case of 
some country which is differently situated from our 
own. 

However valuable, useful, or even necessary a thing 
may be, it bears no price if every person can get as much 
as he pleases of it without any trouble. Without air we 
could not live two minutes ; but, as under ordinary cir- 



20 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



cumstances, everybody can get as much air as he likes, 
he need pay nothing for it. So with water, though in 
less degree. In the United States, and in the country 
parts of Europe, water bears no price, because it can 
easily be had for the getting ; but in the great towus of 
Europe, especially in such a town as London, water does 
bear a price, though the price is so low for those who 
want to drink it, that no one but a churl would think he 
did you any great fay or in giving you a glass of water. 

Now let us take the case of the middle island in the 
New Zealand group. The first settlers in that island 
found a few savages there, but only a few. The climate 
of the island is very like that of England, and the land is 
as fit for ordinary crops as that of our own country. 
Much, no doubt, was covered by wood, bat there was 
abundance of open ground. 

As any person who came thither could have as much 
land as he wished, land was worth nothing ; and no bit 
of land was more desirable than any other bit, or the 
most desirable bits were far in excess of the wants of 
the colonists. But in course of time a change occurs. 
Some bits get to be more desirable than others. The 
first place in which such a change takes place is in the 
towns. A road is made, and a place near the road is 
worth more than a place further from it. The town is a 
seaport, and the land near the sea is worth more than 
that which is more distant. A market is set up, and a 
plot near the market is more desirable than one which is 
less convenient. Immediately on such occasions, the 
land which is thus favored yields more advantages than 
other land does, or, in other words, begins to yield a 
rent. 

In all newly-settled countries rent arises first in the 



THE SHARING OF THE LOAF— RENT. 



21 



towns, since the causes which make rent begin here 
first. In course of time the influence of this cause is 
rendered wider. The agricultural land near the town 
begins to be worth more than that which is further off. 
It may not grow more corn, but it costs less to bring 
what it grows to market. It may have no greater nat- 
ural fertility, but it is at a shorter distance from the 
place whence it can get the means of artificial fertility. 
The occupier of such land finds an easier market for his 
produce. He is put to less cost in carrying manures to 
his farm, and conveying machinery thither. If he tried to 
sell his farm, he could get a price for it, which would be 
beyond the value of what he has laid out on it ; and the 
fact that he could get such a price show^s that it is pay- 
ing a rent. 

By-and-by other farms, as the people get more nu- 
merous, begin to share in these advantages. It does 
not follow that farm produce gets a penny dearer ; it 
may even get cheaper. It very often happens, in coun- 
tries such as I have described, that while land yields no 
rent whatever, the produce of land is exceedingly 
dear. In other words, the prices of wheat, butter, wool, 
and a host of other things, have nothing whatever to do 
with the rent of land. 

In the end, all the land of the country which can re- 
turn any produce to labor is occupied. It is still the 
business of the farmer to turn his land to the best ad- 
vantage, and as he does so, the owner of the land shares 
in the advantage "of the farmer's skill. So the shop- 
keeper tries, in so far as the place where he carries on 
his business will aid him, to get the greatest advantage 
out of his shop; and if the advantage does depend on 
the situation of his shop, his landlord will share the 



22 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



gain. If his landlord did not share it, the occupier 
would keep it to himself. But being better off than his 
neighbor is, by the possession of this advantage of situa- 
tion, he would be able to sell his advantage — that is to 
say, he would become a landowner. 

Now this is the way in which rent arises. Nor is 
there any limit to its increase, as long as the intelligence 
of men is devoted towards improving husbandry, and 
the number of people who live on farm produce in- 
creases with these improvements. In such a country as 
England land has become exceedingly valuable, partly 
because agriculture is practised so well in it, partly 
because the trade of the country has so mightily in- 
creased, and therefore people are willing to give so 
much for the right of occupying land which lies advan- 
tageously for trade. 

The owner of land therefore gets a share in that 
which labor produces without having contributed to 
that labor. But he does not get it by violence or 
wrong ; it comes to him by a law of nature, since what- 
ever is scarce and useful will fetch a price. Now when 
land is fully settled it begins to be scarce, and as in or- 
der for man to live he must get food by husbandry, 
there can be nothing more useful than that which sup- 
plies the means of life. 



LESSOR IV. 



THE SHARE OF THE WORKMAN 

I HATE shown you how it is that the owner of land 
gets a portion of the price at which the loaf is sold : the 
rest of the price is divided among those who work. 

To work means to use one's bodily powers or one's 
powers of mind. Of course no one can use his bodily 
strength to a purpose, in any calling whatever, unless he 
brings his mind to bear on his work : nor can the clev- 
erest and quickest thinker dispense with some bodily 
effort. When, therefore, we say that one man's labor 
is bodily and another's is mental, we merely mean that 
the work is more of the body in the one case, and more 
of the mind in the other. Useful qualities of mind are 
rarer than useful qualities of body, and are therefore 
more costly. The manager of a business is better paid 
than a common workman is, because his skill is scarcer. 
A great lawyer or a wise physician is more highly paid 
than a person of ordinary abilities in either of those call- 
ings is, because great powers in each of those profes- 
sions are rare, and the service which each of those per- 
sons renders is very much sought after. There is a sort 
of fertility of men's minds very like the fertility of cer- 
tain fields. In places where wine is grown, one spot of 
land will produce wine fifty times as valuable as that 



24 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



which comes from another spot, which to all appearance 
is of just the same quality; so the work of one man may 
be paid for at fifty times the rate at which another man's 
work is paid, simply because people find out that it is 
worth fifty times as much. 

It is common to say that such and such a person 
has put so much money or capital into a workshop or 
business. This only means that he has put so much 
work into it, though the work is shown in different ways 
and under different shapes. I will try to make this clear 
to you. 

With one exception, and I have explained this ex- 
ception in the last lesson, every thing valuable gets its 
worth because work is expended on it. If the work- 
man has given his work wisely, the price of what he sells 
agrees with the pains he has been at to produce that 
which he sells. If he makes that which nobody wanes, 
he will have wasted his labor altogether. If he makes 
more than is wanted, he will have wasted some of his 
labor. If he takes more time to make it than other 
people do, he will give more work for less price than 
other workmen do. Xow everybody wishes to get as 
much as he can for his work, and to work as little as he 
can for what he gets. 

These are very plain facts, but they have been the 
causes which have led to that result of which I spoke at 
first— that in the present day a hundred persons can get 
their living where some centuries ago hardly one person 
could live. 

The reason why a piece of gold, roughly speaking, is 
worth fifteen times as much as a piece of silver of the 
same weight, and twelve hundred times as much as a 
piece of copper of the same weight, is that on the whole 



THE SHARE OE THE WORKMAN. 



25 



it takes fifteen and twelve hundred times as much work 
to get a pound of gold as it does the same weights of 
silver and copper. 

The reason why one house in a street is worth a 
thousand dollars, and another house in the same street 
is worth two thousand, is that the second cost twice as 
much to build as the other did. 

The reason why a hundredweight of wheat is gene- 
rally worth half as much again as a hundredweight of 
barley, is the fact that it generally costs half as much 
more labor or expense to grow the former than it does 
to grow the latter. 

The reason why one kind of manual labor is worth 
twenty-five cents a day, and another kind is worth a 
dollar, is because it has cost so much more to prepare 
the latter kind of workman than it has to bring up the 
former. 

In brief, the value or price of any thing, whether it 
be work done or labor to be hired, agrees with the cost 
of making the thing or preparing the laborer. 

Nobody who wishes to get his living by any calling 
betakes himself to making that which nobody wants. It 
would be waste of labor to make parlor grates in a 
tropical climate, or sun-blinds in an arctic one. It is 
true that many people get their living by making or sup- 
plying things which others would be far better without ; 
but there are many things which people wish for, and 
sacrifice a great deal for. though their use is mischievous 
or even ruinous. 

Again, if more of any article is made than is general- 
ly wanted, some of the labor is wasted. It sometimes 
happens that more cotton or woollen cloth is made than 
people want to buy. But this evil soon rights itself. 



26 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



The commonest and worst case is when too many -peo- 
ple enter into any calling. Thus it is said that at pres- 
ent there are more tailors and shoemakers than are 
needed to make clothes and shoes. Unfortunately, 
there have been for many a year too many needle- 
women. Now when too many people are engaged in 
any calling, they will either get low wages or irregular 
employment. It is as plain as figures can show that if 
there be only work for three, and six seek work, there 
are only two courses open for them : either the six must 
work so cheaply as to induce employers to give them 
full work, or each must work half-time. 

Lastly, the workman may take too much time at his 
work. He may be idle, or unskilful, or weak, may have 
bad tools, or not possess improved tools. In working 
land a plough is better than a spade, a steam cultivator 
better than a plough. In spinning yarn a hand- wheel is 
better than a spindle, a spinning-jenny better than a 
hand- wheel. An ill-fed workman is less profitable than 
a well-fed one, often even if the latter is paid double the 
former's wages, for low wages is very often another 
name for dear labor. 



LESSON V. 



THE COURSE OF IMPROVEMENT. 

In the last lesson it was stated that everybody wish- 
es to get as much as he can for his work, and to work as 
little as he can for what he gets. When I say that he 
wishes to work as little as he can, I don't mean that he 
wishes to turn out an inferior article, but that he wants 
to supply an article equally good with that which his 
neighbor supplies, but at less cost to himself. 

There is nothing which has helped the progress of 
mankind more than this motive or impulse. It has 
caused every kind of improvement in the manufacture 
of useful things. It has led men, with greater or less 
success, to devote themselves to that calling for which 
they find themselves most fitted. In seeking their own 
good they have done the best service to their fellow-men. 

I cannot illustrate what I have said better than by 
referring to the progress of agriculture. Two or three 
centuries ago the art of the farmer was very rude. He 
reaped a very scanty return for his seed; he knew 
nothing about those roots on which cattle are maintained 
in the winter-time, and his stock of animals was coarse 
and lean. But he was as diligent and thrifty in his call- 
ing as he now is. He paid rent, and got his living by 
his work on the farm. 



28 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



The first discovery he made was the value of turnips 
and carrots. Before he found out the use of these roots 
he had only a little coarse hay to feed his cattle on in 
the winter. In consequence, towards autumn it used to 
be the custom to kill all the animals who could not be 
kept through the winter, and the people lived on salted 
provisions for several months. Xow he is able to keep 
his stock, and get fresh meat all the year round. But 
the more animals that can be kept on a farm, the more 
grain can be grown ; and the increase of live stock led to 
an increase in the yield of corn. Xext — always with the 
same motive, to get the greatest return at the least pos- 
sible cost — the farmer began to think what were the 
best kinds of grass on which to feed his stock, and which 
could be made into hay. Thus he sowed clover and 
rye grass, and other so-called grasses. More feed and 
more stock followed. By-and-by he began to choose 
his stock of cattle and sheep. He found that some 
breeds yielded more profit than others, and he selected 
these for his farm. Then he studied the land which he 
tilled, and found that draining would better this field, 
and chalk would better that. Then he learned the use 
of artificial manures, as certain substances are called. 
Lastly — always with the same motive — he began to use 
better and more powerful instruments for stirring the 
ground, for reaping or mo whig the produce, and for 
threshing the seed. 

The end of all this has been that the land yields five 
times as much produce as it did in the days before these 
discoveries were made. The motive for these discov- 
eries was the expectation of greater profit on labor — 
i.e.. the farmer's own interest. This he furthered in the 
first instance. But the nation at large had its advan- 



THE COURSE OF IMPROVEMENT. 



29 



tage in greater plenty, in more regular supply, and there- 
fore in the means for maintaining a large number of per- 
sons. The landowner got his advantage in the increase 
of his rent, which kept growing, for the reasons given in 
the last lesson but one. 

The same results have occurred in manufactures. 
The inhabitants of any country must live on its produce, 
or be able, in case they are too numerous for the land 
of the country to maintain them, to get the produce of 
other countries in exchange for what they make. Xow 
it is clear, if agriculture is so backward that everybody's 
time is occupied in tilling the land, while the produce is 
only just sufficient to keep alive those who are engaged 
in tillage, that nobody can betake himself to any other 
calling. And conversely, if the art of agriculture is so 
advanced that a fifth part of the people can produce the 
food which is required for all. four-fifths of the people 
may be employed in some other calling, and many of 
these, under certain circumstances, need do no work 
at all. 

Xow the manufacturer is open to the same influence 
which moves the farmer. He makes cloth, for example. 

If he can lessen his own cost or labor he will get a 
greater return for his labor: so he eagerly welcomes all 
machines which shorten labor or lessen cost. Part of 
this extra advantage he keeps for himself, part he bestows 
on the public by lessening the price of that which he 
makes. At the present time it is probable that it does 
not take a fiftieth part of the time and trouble to make 
a yard of cloth that it did in the days when farmers be- 
gan to improve agriculture. Meanwhile the people at 
large have got better and cheaper clothing. 

TVhen we think of the conditions under which the 



30 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



industry of any society of men is carried on, we shall 
constantly discover that while men are endeavoring, by 
just and lawful means — that is, without violence, unfair- 
ness, or dishonesty — to further their own interests, they 
always further the interests of others also ; and the rea- 
son why this always takes place is that they who are en- 
gaged in honest industry are trying to do their neighbors 
a service. It is true that they expect some other service 
in return; but the exchange of these services is a mutual 
advantage. If I have made a pair of boots, and my neigh- 
bor has made a table, and we agree to exchange these two 
useful articles, the fact of our making the exchange means 
that I prefer the table to the boots, and he prefers the 
boots to the table. We both gain : we should not make 
the exchange if each did not see his own good in the 
bargain. 

Plain as this fact is, it has taken a very long time to 
make it plain. What is true of the bootmaker and the 
cabinet-maker is true of all the people who live together 
and trade together in any one country ; it is true of the 
trade which is carried on between country and country. It 
is no honest man's real interest to make his neighbors poor 
and miserable : his best chance is in their wealth and pros- 
perity. But nations have not yet learned this truth. They 
still put hindrances between themselves and other nations. 

What should we think of a shopkeeper who wished 
to sell his own goods, and yet paid a policeman to prevent 
the people of another village from coming to buy of him, 
and sell to him ? Now this is just what a country does 
which prohibits or fetters trade with other countries. 



LESSON VI. 



VAKIETY OF EMPLOYMENTS. 

The more employment is divided, the greater is the 
skill of those who addict themselves to a single employ- 
ment. " Practice makes perfect," says the proverb. No 
one can be dexterous without being diligent. By force 
of habit, persons are able to do things so quickly and so 
exactly, that they who do not possess the knack wonder 
how the thing can be done at all. But quickness and 
exactness mean cheapness, and contribute to what I have 
called the greatest amount of work with the least pos- 
sible labor. If everybody had to do every thing for 
himself, he could not do each thing nearly so well 
and nearly so easily as would be done if one man 
made it his business to make one thing, or even part of 
one thing. It is very useful to know how to do a great 
many things: it is wise to try to get one's living by 
making one thin^. 

Nature points this out to us on a large scale. Differ- 
ent countries have different products. One region grows 
cotton and tea, another wheat, another rice, another 
spices, another wine and oil. One country possesses coal, 
another mines of metals. This division of material qual- 
ities points to a division of industries and employments, 
and an exchange of the benefits which those industries 
procure. 



32 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



Similar facts apply to the inhabitants of any one coun- 
try. In nearly all parts of the United States, agriculture 
is still the prevailing industry ; but while in the Xorthern 
and Western States the inhabitants have devoted them- 
selves to the growing of wheat, oats and corn, in the 
Southern States the farmers produce principally cotton, 
rice, and sugar. In some parts of the country, moreover, 
while a large portion of the territory is still devoted to 
farms, a large proportion of the inhabitants are engaged 
in other employments, as in New England in manufactur- 
ing, and in Pennsylvania and other States in mining and 
working metals. The United States have a long line 
of sea-coast, containing many harbors, while the sea in 
the neighborhood of some parts of this coast swarms 
with fish. Hence the callings of the sailor and the fish- 
erman. 

Again, there are occupations which seem to be 
proper to sex and age. It seems natural that men 
should do particular kinds of work — as that of a collier, 
a giassblower. a smith. Xo one would like to see 
women engaged in these callings. Again, some occu- 
pations seem peculiarly fitted to women — as that of 
teaching children, sewing, and domestic labor. The 
difference of fitness does not lie in the hardness of the 
work. Labor in a harvest field is hard enough, but in 
most countries of Europe, in the agricultural districts 
women bear a part in this. 

Some kinds of work are undertaken by young per- 
sons. It is cruel and foolish to give children hard work. 
It is too great a strain on their powers, and therefore 
stunts their growth and damages their health. It inter- 
feres with their school-time and learning, and therefore 
stunts their minds. Hence the law in England, and in 



VARIETY OF EMPLOYMENTS. 



33 



some of the United States, prohibits the employment of 
children below a certain age — at least in certain callings 
— and does not allow them to work more than a certain 
number of hours any week during another time of their 
life. It has been proved, however, that when children 
of a certain age do light work for a time, and learn for 
a time, their education does not suffer. 

A variety of circumstances, then, lead to a division 
of employments. Experience shows that such a division 
makes work easier. 

The most familiar and general of such divisions is 
that which sets a father to work, and gives the mother 
the management of the home. The wise expenditure 
of wages is as important and difficult as the skilful earn- 
ing of wages. ISTo man is more to be pitied than a 
workman who, having a young family, loses his wife, ex- 
cept perhaps one who has a wife who neglects her du- 
ties to her home and her children. 

The largest example of the division of employment 
is to be found in the government of a country. If no 
arrangement were made for the public and private de- 
fence, for doing right between persons in courts of 
law, but everybody had to undertake the protection of 
his own home and family from violence, and to be the 
judge of his own rights and wrongs, the waste of such 
a system would be vast, the confusion would be con- 
stant, and society could not hold together. The soldier, 
the policeman, the judge, the ruler, are all appointed to 
the offices they fill, because it is the cheapest course to 
have such persons to do a great public service. 

If you were to go into a great manufactory, you 
would find in one place a number of persons engaged 
2* 



34 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



in keeping accounts, and considering what work is to be 
undertaken. Then, when you go into the workshop, 
you would find a number of persons engaged in various 
kinds of labor. You might find some men occupied in 
work which requires a great amount of skill, others in 
work which needs little more than an effort of strength. 
Yon may find women employed in occupations which do 
not need much heavy labor, but which do require a cer- 
tain amount of taste or quickness. And, lastly, you 
may find a number of children occupied in that which 
does not require much strength or much skill. There 
may be, in short, many kinds of labor engaged under the 
same roof. 

Xow it is plain that there may be, and is, a great 
variety in the value of these kinds of labor. It would 
seem that the work which needs much skill and strength 
ought to be more costly, i. e., be better paid, than that 
which needs only strength, or only skill, and much more 
than that which needs neither skill nor strength in any 
great degree. 

Xow imagine that one man did all the work. Sup- 
pose that he is engaged in something that is really 
wanted, and which people will freely pay for in order to 
possess it. It is clear that in such a case h^ must be 
paid for the easiest and simplest work at the same rate 
that he is paid for the hardest, and that which needs most 
skill, and therefore that what he makes and sells will be 
very expensive. 

The division of employment takes away part of the 
\COSt of labor. Easy work is paid at cheap or low rates; 
hard work, and work which needs much skill, "at high 
rates. In a great factory, such as I have spoken of, one 



VARIETY OF EMPLOYMENTS. 



35 



workman may earn as many dollars a week as another 
earns dimes. Xay, the most important workman of all, 
the manager, 1ms, if he is paid properly, to receive much 
more than any of those who are put under him, and for 
a very plain reason. 



LESSON VII. 



VARIOUS RATES OF WAGES. 

Just as one field may grow more corn than another 
field, without putting the farmer to any greater cost in 
cultivating it, — just as a shop in one street may be more 
suitable for business than an equally good shop in an- 
other street, — just as one mine may yield more coal or 
iron than another mine, while the cost of working both 
is the same, and so on with a variety of other such nat- 
urally useful objects — so one man may, with no greater 
cost of preparation than his neighbor, earn a great deal 
more than that neighbor. There is a superior fertility 
of certain fields, a greater profit to be got in certain 
places, richer veins in certain mines, and similarly there 
is a greater natural power in certain minds. Two law- 
yers may have the same education and be equally dili- 
gent, but one may earn hundreds where another only 
earns tens. Two physicians may have had the same ad- 
vantages of study, and have equally striven to profit by 
their opportunities, and one may make a fortune while 
the other can barely earn a living. 

Now in the case of the field, the shop, and the mine, 
it is easy to measure the natural advantage which the 
more favored possess over the less, for reasons which I 



VARIOUS RATES OF WAGES. 



37 



gave before, when I told you how rent arises. It is not 
so easy, however, to measure the advantage which supe- 
rior abilities give some persons over others who work in 
the same calling; but they are none the less real and 
solid. 

These advantages of superior natural powers are to 
be noticed more frequently in mental labor than in man- 
ual. When an ordinary manual laborer has superior 
gifts, he seldom remains long in his first calling. He 
contrives to raise himself to what may be called the pro- 
fessional class, to leave off working with his hands, be- 
cause he is able to work with his head. The history of 
invention contains many instances of persons who have 
begun their career in a very humble station, and who 
have raised themselves to great eminence by their ge- 
nius and skill. 

I have mentioned this difference of capacity between 
man and man, because it is the only fact which prevents 
the rule which I am going to state from being universal 
- — that the wages of every kind of labor or service which 
is offered and accepted are measured by the cost of pro- 
ducing and maintaining the laborer. As the mass of 
men have no remarkable gifts, the rule holds in their 
case without exception. 

I use the words " labor or service which is offered 
and accepted," because when a thing is not wanted it 
has no price or value. In degree, as I have said before, 
the same fact prevails when more is offered than is 
wanted. I put the case where the quantity offered ex- 
actly satisfies the quantity needed, because we are able 
to discover from such a case what follows when the 
offer is more than the -want, or the want is more than 
the offer. 



38 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



From time to time every kind of labor rises and 
falls in value because more or less of it is needed. 
When in 1862, and for two or three years afterwards, 
there was a very scanty quantity of cotton to be sold, 
and therefore the price rose greatly, the services of 
cotton-spinners in England were less needed, and in 
consequence great distress prevailed in those English 
counties where the chief industry is that of cotton- 
spinning. When, a few years ago, it was no longer 
found to be worth while to build iron ships on the 
Thames, the same kind of distress occurred among the 
ship-builders. 

Taking these cases into account then, we shall find 
that the rule given above holds good. A workman is 
not paid wages in proportion to the importance of the 
service he does, or to the general skill with which he 
does it, but according to the cost of making him fit for 
the work which he has to do. 

There is no workman who can do so many things 
well as a good farm-laborer. He can plough. jSTow 
this is a work which requires a nice eye and a steady 
hand, for the ploughman has to drive a straight furrow 
for a long distance, and make that furrow of a uniform 
depth. He can reap — a task which requires no little 
skill ; mow ; build up a rick, thatch it ; tend horses, 
sheep, and cattle; milk cows; trim hedges; clean and 
bank ditches, and a number of other things, any one of 
which needs great skill : but he is generally paid very 
low wages. 

The fact is, it costs very little to fit him for his work. 
At an early age he is made to earn the whole or part of 
his living, by being set to work in the field. He picks 
up his skill in other kinds of farm-work gradually. 



VARIOUS RATES OF WAGES. 



39 



There are other callings in which it is the custom to 
limit the right of working to those who have been ap- 
prentices, and further to limit the number of apprentices 
which a master may take. These rules make laborers 
scarce. The first rule makes the cost of training high, 
by delaying the power of earning full wages ; the second 
rule makes the number of laborers few. In callings 
therefore where these rules prevail, the wages of the 
workman — whose skill, maybe, is far less than that of the 
farm-laborer — are far higher than those of the farm-hand. 
But I must speak more at length on this subject here- 
after. 

A workman, in short, is just like a machine. It costs 
a great deal to render him competent to do work, and 
the outlay varies from hundreds to thousands of dol- 
lars. The workman has to be provided with food in or- 
der that he may work at all, just as a machine has to get 
its power of motion from fuel or some other source of 
power; and similarly, the human machine lasts in its full 
strength only for a time, and entirely wears out at 
last. 

If there were any plan devised by which all the 
workmen in a particular calling were brought up and 
taught at the public expense, the wages of such work- 
men would reach the lowest range. In so far as some 
of such workmen were thus bred up, so far the wages 
of all would be lowered. There is no doubt, since many 
children of the poorest classes are brought up at the 
public expense in workhouses and elsewhere, that the 
general rate of wages is thereby lessened. There are 
some gifts which are not gains ; you may not be able to 
refuse their acceptance, though you may be none the 
better for them. 



LESSON VIII. 



UNPAID WORK. 

The hardest labor which men undergo in field facto- 
ry, or mine, is not so hard as that which some undergo 
merely to amuse themselves. There are men who hunt, 
swim, race, row. run. walk, in a manner which, if they 
were forced to do these things by another's will, or for 
their living, would be a grievous hardship — a mere cruel- 
ty. So there are people who study. A man will gaze 
night after night at the stars with a patience and earnest- 
ness which few give to their common business — with far 
more diligence than any switch-tender watches trains. 
Another will pore over coins, and relics, and ruins, for 
months and years together : and not only will such peo- 
ple work very hard, but they will get nothing for their 
trouble. 

This kind of work is generally very pleasant to the 
man that undertakes it, and is sometimes very useful to 
society. Unless it goes into excess, exercise is of great 
service to the man who takes it. It makes him healthy, 
clear-headed, and strong; it gives, or ought to give, a 
lesson of temperance, for no person can excel in those 
exercises unless his habits are regular and sober. The 
change also from one kind of exertion to another is ex- 
ceedingly good for boys and men. A boy who mopes 



UNPAID WORK. 



41 



in the playground seldom makes much figure in his 
class. 

These exercises are a good thing for society at large. 
It is everybody's interest that the men and women of 
the nation to which he belongs should be healthy and 
vigorous. A plant is healthy by reason of its leaves as 
well as its root ; a man is healthy when his mind and his 
body grow together. Xow a race of stunted, sickly 
people may be said to be like a growth of stunted and 
sickly plants. Happily, however, it is almost always 
possible to put health into young people. It has some- 
times happened, though, that a race has been ruined. 

Again, when an astronomer watches the skies night 
after night — a geologist studies the manner in which the 
earth is constructed — a naturalist busies himself with 
the different habits and powers of animals — a botanist 
inquires into the structure of plants— these people are 
engaged in occupations which give them the keenest 
pleasure. The study of nature is one of the best and 
most gratifying of pursuits. You can follow it out in a 
great town as eagerly, though not perhaps as fully, as in 
a country village. It will give a relish to all occupa- 
tions, and add new powers to one's eyes, and sometimes 
to one's other senses. 

These pursuits give a great many advantages to him 
who follows them. It would be sufficient if they afford- 
ed him a rational amusement, and lifted him above 
merely sensual pleasures; but they very often do much 
more. Observing eyes have frequently found out some- 
thing which have set many heads and hands to work. 
The prizes of human life are rare, and many may miss 
them who deserve them as much as those who find them ; 
but nobody ever found them who kept his eyes shut. 



42 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



But I am more concerned at present with the effect 
of these kinds of study on society at large. They have 
constantly been the reason why mankind has made a 
great and lasting advance from weakness to power; and 
there is no doubt that they will constantly jDroduce the 
same results. It is easy to prove what I have said. 

Some student finds out that a little piece of stone 
gives a power to a little piece of steel of always point- 
ing in one direction. His discovery enables sailors to 
improve the art of navigation, and to find out a new 
world. 

Still, this discovery only tells the sailor which way 
he is going. Another person finds out that he can make, 
by reason of the qualities of certain metals, an instru- 
ment which will measure time with almost complete ac- 
curacy, and thus enable the sailor to find out where 
he is. 

The ship is, however, a very rough affair. Another 
person studies the properties of water, air, and wood, 
and defines, as accurately as a reckoning in figures will 
define any -thing, what are the rules by which a ship 
should be built. 

isTow let us take another subject. A student busies 
himself with the ground on which he walks, the quarries 
of stone which are dug out in it, and the shells and 
other relics which he finds in it. He is struck with the 
fact that the shells are exactly the same as those which 
are found near such coal-mines as are or have been 
worked. He argues, and he is right too, that though no 
coal is to be seen in the place which he has examined, 
the coal will be found on digging. He does the same 
with mines of metals. 

A chemist is engaged in trying, for the pure love of 



UNPAID WORK. 



43 



knowledge, to find out what are the properties possessed 
by gas-tar. Nothing, it would seem, but a love of sci- 
ence would lead him to trouble himself with it. But he 
knows that Nature is full of pleasant surprises, and that 
the more you learn about it, the more you enjoy it. Bv- 
and-by he finds out that this black, ill-smelling stuff con- 
tains the material for the most brilliant colors which can 
be given to cotton, wool, and silk. 

Hardest of all, a man busies himself with consider 
ing how the life of man can be spent most profitably to 
his neighbor and himself — how the world can go on with 
the least possible waste and disappointment. If he hits 
on the truth, he has done the rarest work of all, chiefly 
because the fruit of his discovery is to teach the way in 
which each man can make the best use of his powers. 
His work is of a very anxious kind, partly because it is 
so serious a matter if he makes a mistake, and persuades 
people that his mistake is a truth, partly because it is so 
difficult to discover the truth after which he is seeking. 

Perhaps not one of these persons is ever paid for his 
trouble. Many of them do not care to be paid, and if 
their work were ever so much slighted, would persevere 
as steadily as though it were reckoned at its true value. 

I have spoken of these cases because it must not be 
supposed that all useful work is paid for. Had it not 
been for such persons as these, who have studied what 
is to be seen and known for truth's sake, there would 
have been very little real progress made by mankind. 
Social science takes note of those services especially 
which are valued and exchanged ; but it would be a 
great mistake to forget that some of the best services 
are beyond value, and cannot be priced, because no known 
price equals their worth. 



LESSOR IX. 



MOTIVES FOIl LABOR. 

It does not follow because a man works for that 
which will give him wages or profit, that he does not 
feel a pleasure in his work. Men may have a keen eye 
for the advantages which their calling affords, them, and 
yet have as keen a love for the calling itself. A great 
painter, like Turner, may be quite devoted to his art, 
and yet be quite alive to the gain he makes by it. A 
great musician may be excessively fond of the wonder- 
ful subject on which his genius is exercised, as Beet- 
hoven was, and yet drive a good bargain with those who 
prize his compositions. It is a great mistake to think 
that the toil by which a man earns his bread must needs 
be unpleasant. On the contrary, he is a very silly fellow 
who does not make it agreeable, if it be possible to do 
so. But there is no doubt that every man who works 
for his living wishes to shorten his labor as much as he 
can. So also does he who works for his pleasure. Pro- 
vided it be only well done, no sensible person likes to 
linger over his work longer than he can help. 

Now, what is it that sets most men and women to 
work ? It is necessity. A man must work in order to 
live. A few people can live without working in any so- 
ciety, but only a few. Nay, it is remarkable that of 



MOTIVES FOE LABOR. 



45 



these few a great many work very hard, some for profit, 
some for glory, some for what they believe to be the 
good of their fellow-men. In our country there are 
many rich but very few idle persons. Some of the rich- 
est are the most active, and if you remember what was 
said in the last lesson, some of them are the most 
useful. 

A man. however, may be very willing to work, and 
yet find nothing to do. because he has not found anybody 
who wants that which his work produces. Makers of 
carpets and fire-irons would find no employment in Bra- 
zil, for in a hot climate nobody uses a carpet or keeps a 
fire in his sitting-room. 

Somebody wants a man's work before he betakes 
himself to such an industry as he carries on. Somebody 
is ready to pay for it — that is. to give money for it. or 
to exchange something else for it — that is. to make 
something which he will give instead of it. For reasons 
which I shall show in another lesson, to buy and to bar- 
ter are really the same things. 

Two or more people work. then, because somebody 
wants what they work at. There are. of course, many 
kinds of wants, which are more or less pressing. Every- 
body wants food, clothing, and shelter. But there are 
many other wants when these are satisfied, which many 
or few people desire. If they do desire them, and they 
can be supplied, they get them satisfied. 

You will see. then, that the force which sets peoj^le 
to work is twofold : their own needs and the needs of 
others. If men wanted nothing, they would not work; 
and if other men would give nothing which they waut. 
it would be no good for them to work. 

Xow if any man who works could easily and instant- 



46 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



ly find a customer or customers who would keep him in 
constant employment, and would give him in exchange 
for his work what he wants himself, the circle would he 
complete. Such a state of things occurs to a greater or 
less extent in country villages. A tailor or shoemaker 
constantly gets work from the villagers who live in the 
same place with him. rinding his customers without any 
difficulty, and living entirely on their wants. In India the 
system is carried out much more exactly. In the vil- 
lages of that country there are always a certain number 
of artificers who live out of the common funds of the 
village, in return for the labors they give. 

Remembering, then, that the sole force which moves 
a man, whose needs compel him to work, is the willing- 
ness of others to buy the proceeds of his work from 
him. you will see that our social life, especially with 
those who dwell in large towns, is very different from 
that which belongs to our country villages, and still fur- 
ther removed from that which is found in India. The 
city workman seldom deals directly with the man who 
uses that which he makes : he is generally employed by 
a person who is called master. 

This master or employer is really a middleman or 
go-between. His business is to find out customers for 
the workman's labor, and so to save him the trouble of 
seeking the customers himself. Xow such an agent is a 
great saving to the workman. Though he does not say 
so in so many words, he does say in effect. " I will find 
you persons who will buy your labor, if there are any 
persons who will buy it." 

Xext. his experience in finding customers not only 
stands the workman in good stead, but the same experi- 
ence enables him to guess with fair certainty what the. 



MOTIVES FOR LABOR. 



47 



number of such customers will be, and to take the risk 
of rinding them out. Hence he is abie to fix in a rough 
way how much of the labor for which he finds customers 
is wanted, and in a much closer way, is able to find reg- 
ular work for as many laborers as are needed for this 
work. 

There is nothing which a workman desires more than 
steady work at a fair price. This is what the middle- 
man or employer does for him, or at least offers to do 
for him. He buys his labor and sells it again. The 
laborer sells him his labor as really as the merchant sells 
the employer the leather, wood, cotton, or cloth on 
which the workman tries his skill. Xay, the workman 
actually lends his labor, unless he is paid from hour to 
hour, or the employer advances his wages, as certainly 
as the man lends money who makes an advance to the 
employer, in order to enable him to buy the materials 
which I named just now. 

Why, then, is this employer or master paid, and what 
is he paid? He is paid because he does a service to the 
laborer, and for the matter of that, to the man who buys 
the laborer's work in the end. He is paid because he 
works ; and he is paid well whenever his skill is no 
common power. The employer will and can no more 
work for nothing than any other laborer can or will. 
How much he will be paid depends on several things. 
It depends partly on the bargain which he can make 
with the laborer, partly on the bargain which he can 
make with the customer, partly on the shrewdness and 
skill with which he can guess at what the customers 
want. 

He does not, however, except in a very narrow 
sense, set labor in motion. He does not find wages, ex- 



48 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



cept for a short time. He is a middleman, or go-be- 
tween, or dealer, who does a very useful service to cer- 
tain persons, a service which very often is quite neces- 
sary. But many laborers do without him, many more 
could do without him: some are doing without him on 
a very great scale. But social life can never wholly get 
rid of him, for he is sometimes a real necessity for la- 
borer and customer. 



LESSON X. 



PARTNERSHIPS OF LABOR. 

The reasons which give a price to the master's or 
employer's labor, enable the shopkeej^er to get a profit 
on what he does. The shopkeeper is the last link be- 
tween the laborer or producer, and the customer or 
consumer. If he were got rid of. or not in existence, 
the man who makes any useful article would have to hunt 
out the man who wants the article. This would be a 
waste of time, and therefore it is better to employ a 
go-between. 

The reason why there are such persons as merchants, 
agents, bankers, contractors, and so forth, is just the 
same, These are middlemen, who cheapen, or. what is 
the same thing, render more convenient the course of 
trade. Of course, if there are more of them than are 
needed, they are a hindrance and a loss. When there 
are too many of them they cause dearness. for they gen- 
erally unite together to fix the price of what they sell, 
and then look out for customers. They have a perfect 
right to do this, for everybody has a right to put his 
own price on his own goods and his own labor, and if 
need be, to unite with other persons for a common end ; 
but then, other people have a right to do without them 
if they choose to do so. 



50 



SOCIAL ECONOjUY. 



No one, it is clear, has a right to demand of any 
other person that he should find him employment. A 
man who wants something may make it himself if he 
pleases, and if he can. A man who needs a service may 
do it for himself, if he is able, and nobody is wronged. 
So if a body of workmen or a body of customers can 
get rid of these middlemen, they are perfectly justified 
in doing so. 

This is sometimes done under what is called co-oper- 
ation. The word is rather an unlucky one, because 
there can be no human society at all without co-opera- 
tion; but the word is commonly used to express a par- 
ticular kind of partnership, in which the service of the 
middleman is got rid of. Of this partnership there are 
two kinds. 

One, the easiest and the simplest, is that which seeks 
to get rid of the shopkeeper, and therefore to sell the 
articles either at the ordinary price, and divide the profits 
among the customers of the shop or store, or at the 
lowest cost possible, after the expenses of the shop are 
paid. Such a scheme has been adopted in some settle- 
ments in the United States and in many towns through 
the North of England. The principle of the plan is 
that the shop gives no credit, and therefore runs no 
risk. 

The other kind of partnership is where the work- 
men find building, machines, tools, and materials them- 
selves, and so get rid of the master or employer. This 
is a much more serious business. If it succeeds, the 
workmen, in addition to their own wages, get the em- 
ployer's wages also. 

In order that such a plan should succeed, three things 
are necessary : good management, prompt obedience 



PARTNERSHIPS OF LABOR. 



51 



to the necessary discipline of the workshop, and thrift. 
It is not difficult to secure the thrift, for when all the 
workmen, or a vast number of the workmen, are also 
owners, there is every wish to avoid waste. In this 
particular, an association or partnership of workmen has 
a great advantage over an employer. I am told that 
where this plan has been adopted the saving of waste 
is often very great. I am afraid it is true, and will be 
true for a long time to come, that people take more 
care of their own than they do of their neighbor's 
property. 

It is not always easy, however, to secure prompt 
obedience. Men who possess their own property don't 
like to be dictated to sometimes as to how they should 
use it, and English- American people, we are told, least 
of all. They make a great mistake when they show 
this self-will, even though no person's interest but their 
own is concerned. For, unluckily, the notion that a 
man will always save and spare what belongs to him, is a 
great error. Passion, and the habit of thinking only of 
the present day, instead of the future, make many men 
waste their substance, their powers, and their char- 
acter. 

But when another man's interest is bound up in one's 
own, the folly of negligence to duty, or order, or need- 
ful obedience, becomes a crime. You may see this best 
in an army. The safety of all lies in the obedience of 
all. If there be such a thing as natural rights, to go to 
sleep when you are tired is one of those rights ; but if 
a sentinel does so, he is shot. Another natural right is 
that of avoiding danger ; but a man who runs away in a 
battle is treated with the same justice as is given to a 
sleeping sentinel. It is quite fair that a man should 



52 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



choose those with whom he cares to have friendship ; 
but in war the choice is restricted, under the same pen- 
alties. 

Such, or something like it, is the case with a business 
in which many persons are interested. If one man ne- 
glects his work, another refuses to obey orders, a third 
undertakes that which does not belong to him, every 
thing is thrown out of gear. You can see the same 
thing in a school. The first rule of a school is order. 
Out of school the more liberty without wrong-doing 
the better: in school hours no liberty and full obedience 
is the way to work well. In some of these workmen 
partnerships of which I know, obedience is as strictly 
maintained as it is in an army ; in consequence, the whole 
of the workmen prosper. 

The hardest of all the needs is good management ; 
but the better and wiser the workman is, the easier is the 
management. If there were no wilful, foolish, and 
vicious people in the world, there would be' no great 
trouble in ruling men. If there were no naughty and 
idle boys, the government of a school would be very 
easy. Perhaps, too, it is not so difficult to find people 
who will trust the ruler, as it is to find rulers who can be 
trusted. 

Now these partnerships of workmen have been en- 
tered upon in England and in the United States. They 
have been very successful where the plan has been car- 
ried out as I have described it ; but they have been still 
more successful in Northern Germany. 



LESSON XL 



THE RIGHT OF A SELLER TO FIX A PRICE. 

Ix my last lesson I said that everybody has a right 
to fix the price at which he will sell that which he pos- 
sesses. This statement is a general rule, to which there 
may be exceptions. 

For example, if a town was besieged, or in other way 
reduced to great straits, and a few men possessed all 
the food in the town, it is clear that, reasonable compen- 
sation being made, such persons may be constrained to 
bring the food they have into a common stock. And 
the ground of such an interference with trade is, that 
the siege being endured for the common safety of all, 
or the calamity, whatever it may be, affecting all, the full 
rights of property must be suspended for a time. 

In the same way, if it were necessary suddenly to 
undertake some work of public defence — as building 
forts against an enemy, or joining together to put down 
a riot, or laboring to check an inundation— it would 
never do to submit to the highest terms which those who 
might do the work could extort, but all might be justly 
called on to aid in what would be a common duty and a 
common interest. 

Again, it must be supposed that the person who fixes 
his price for his work or labor should be free to choose. 



54 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



The law properly interferes to protect the weak against 
the strong. Hence it is held that the labor of children 
should be regulated by law ; that certain callings should 
not be followed by women; and sometimes that the 
hours of labor in the case of young persons should be 
put under some limit. 

But, with such exceptions as these, the general prin- 
ciple is that everybody has a right to fix what price he 
pleases for that which he has to sell, whether it be labor 
or goods. In the case of goods, very few people doubt 
that this right should be fully given ; in the case of labor, 
people are not so much of one mind, though they are 
much more agreed than they once were. 

If a man has the right of fixing the price of his own 
labor, he has a right to join with others in order to fix 
the price of all the labor which they may all be willing 
to sell. If ten, twenty, or two hundred persons can 
join in a trade partnership (and in some such partner- 
ships the number is reckoned by thousands — as, for ex- 
ample, in a railway), any number of persons can as rightly 
engage in a labor partnership, and thereupon agree to- 
gether as to the terms on which they will sell their labor. 

And on the other hand, persons who buy labor, or 
the produce of labor, have an equal right to decide with 
whom they will deal. If the workman has a choice as 
to the rate at which he will work, the customer has a 
choice as to whether he will accept the workman's terms. 
In the long run, the interests of the two parties to a 
bargain are so clearly understood that these things right 
themselves. 

When the workmen join together to fix the jDrice at 
which they will work, the partnership is called a trades- 
union. I have called it a partnership, for it is just as 



EIGHT OF A SELLER TO EIX A PRICE. 



55 



much such an agreement as is the union of a number of 
persons to start a bank or make a railway, or work a 
mine. To refuse this right of partnership to workmen, 
and to give it to those who sell goods, is to do an in- 
justice. 

There is a very plain reason why workmen unite to- 
gether in such a partnership. The employer of labor, 
as I said in my last lesson, finds out the market price for 
that which he buys from the men whom he employs. 
Xow he wants, of course, to get the best price he can, 
or as I said before, to get the greatest amount of wages 
for the least possible work. The employer of labor is 
the manager of a business. Management means work ; 
and work is, as I haye shown you, to be paid for. The 
manager of a business, then, is just as much a workman 
as the people from whom he buys labor are. 

The price which he gets for that which he sells coy- 
ers the wages which he has paid the workman, the cost 
of his own materials, which are only labor stored up in 
useful objects, and his own wages. If the price did not 
coyer these items, it is clear that he would be working 
at a loss, and would not therefore continue his work. In 
one shape or the other, then, he gets wages for the work 
he does. 

Xow it is possible to conceiye that the workmen 
whose labor he buys may say to themselves, and then to 
each other : " This employer of ours gets too much 
wages for his work, and we get too little. We must try 
to put this right, and see whether we cannot get a larger 
share. How shall we set about this ? " 

There are three ways of arriving at such a result. 
One is, that the laborers should cease to work until they 
are paid more of the price at which the article which 



56 



SOCIAL ECOXOjIY. 



they make sells. Then they are said to strike — i. e., to 
leave off working till their claims are met. Unluckily 
for the workmen, they are not generally so well in- 
formed as the master or employer is as to the price which 
their labor will fetch, and as to the needs of those avIio 
buy from their employer. Hence it has very often hap- 
pened that when they strike for higher wages they waste 
their own means, and do not gain the end they strive 
for. They are as much justified in trying to better the 
price of their labor, as a tradesman or merchant is who 
says he will rather not sell at all, than not get what he 
thinks his goods are worth. 

Another way of meeting the difficulty is to submit 
the whole case to some umpire. People seldom judge 
of their own rights wisely, and are frequently the better 
for taking counsel about them. You see this in the 
games which you play, and when you get older you will 
see the same fact in a hundred different things. There 
is a proverb, that " a man who is his own lawyer has a 
fool for his client.'' But a man who makes himself the 
judge of his own rights is even more certain to commit 
errors. Since this appeal to an umpire began to be prac- 
ticed in disputes between workmen and employers, a 
great many difficulties have been settled in a friendly 
manner. 

There is yet a third course ; this is to get rid of the 
employer altogether, and to enter into a complete part- 
nership, m which the manager of the business has the 
ordering of the labor, and in which the wages of the 
employer, after paying the manager, are divided among 
those who work with their hands. But this, as you will 
see, is what I spoke about in my last lesson, when I told 
you of labor partnerships. It is not perhaps possible to 



RIGHT OF A SELLER TO FIX A PRICE. ,37 

make this change in all cases, but where the plan has 
been tried it has often succeeded, and as time goes on it 
is likely to succeed more and more. Meanwhile the 
trial points out to workingmen what is the real position 
in which the employer stands to them. 
3* 



lesson xn. 



THE EMPLOYER'S WAGES. 

Of course, if workmen bad the means wherewith to 
build the factories in which they work, and to buy the 
machines, if any, which shorten their labor, the materi- 
als on which to work, and could also bide their time till 
they can sell that which they make to the best advan- 
tage, they would be doing what the employer does for 
them when he uses his property for these ends. If, more- 
over, having these advantages in their possession, they 
could find a proper and fit person to direct their work, 
were content to follow orders, and to use thrift, their 
own interests w T ould lead them to enter into the part- 
nership, and so save themselves the cost of using the 
employers property and services. 

They are seldom able to do so. Workmen are rare- 
ly worth more than their week's wages in advance, and 
sometimes not even so much, but have to run in debt 
until they are paid their week's wages at the end of the 
week's work. Even if they have saved something, they 
seldom know how to set about creating such a partner- 
ship as I have referred to. They do not see how to 
begin. 

Besides, in a great many kinds of industry a very 
great outlay has to be made before any returns come in. 



THE EMPLOYEE'S WAGES. 



59 



For example, a railway may be many years in making, 
before those who have made it can get a profit or reward 
for their expense. In other words, the property is sunk 
in the undertaking. 

Of course, it is possible for workingmen to find this 
outlay if they could join together to do so. The sum 
of money which has been put into the savings banks in 
this country is far in excess of the capital of the biggest 
railway. There are now working, and at a very good 
profit, two cotton mills at Oldham, in England, the larg- 
est capital of which has been subscribed in small sums by 
workingmen; 

In by far the largest number of cases, however, some 
one, two. or more persons called employers, capitalists, 
or masters, find all the property necessary to make the 
workshop, buy the machines and materials, and hold the 
goods. This is what they do. They do not really pay 
the workman, for at the end of the week they are in 
debt to him for work he has trusted them with. They 
merely buy his labor, as much as they buy whatever else 
they want ; and they sell what they have bought to the 
customer. 

Xow you will see that the property with which the 
employer gets together buildings, machines, materials, 
and on which he can live till he sees proper to sell what 
he has bought, is only so much labor previously spent. 
We saw before that, with one exception, nothing has 
any value except by reason of the work which has been 
laid out on it. Property is value put into material ob- 
jects by means of labor. 

Some motive, however, must be put before the per- 
son who owns this property in order to induce him. in- 
stead of using it for his own enjoyment or amusement. 



60 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



to save it first, and then to employ it in assisting others 
to work. It is true that the owner of such property 
would not use it in this manner, unless he expected 
to get it back again in its full value ; and get some- 
thing else as a reward, so to speak, for employing it 
to the good of others, instead of devoting it to his own 
pleasure. 

This reward or inducement is called interest. A man 
lends, so to speak, seed to the ground, and he expects 
not onlv to °;et back his seed at harvest-time, but a great 
deal more than he lent. In the same way. if a man puts 
property into the ground — for example, builds a house, 
drains a marsh, buys cattle and sheep to fatten, he ex- 
pects to get his cost price back again, sooner or later, 
and something more. In just the same way if he lends 
property to another, he expects to get repaid with some- 
thing into the bargain. 

There is no doubt that the services of what is called 
capital, and for the use of which interest is paid, are 
very inrportant ; but we must take care against two mis- 
takes. We must not use the word in too narrow a 
sense; we must not overrate the importance of that 
sense in which the word is commonly used. 

In the first place, as I have told you before several 
times, there is no value in any thing which does not cost 
labor. Xow any thing on which labor has been bestowed, 
and which people are desirous of using or buying, is cap- 
ital. A grown workman whose work is worth any thing 
at all, is as much capital as a machine, or a useful ani- 
mal, or any other kind of property whatever. If a 
thousand workmen are employed by a builder, each one 
of these men brings capital into the business as much as 
the employer does who brings bricks, stone, lime, timber 



THE EMPLOYER'S WAGES. 



61 



ladders, and the like. All useful things which can be 
sold are wealth, and all wealth that can be used is capi- 
tal. In the wages which are paid to workmen for their 
work, part is interest on the charge laid out in making 
the workman fit for his calling ; part is the cost of find- 
ing him food and other necessaries ; part is what is re- 
quired in order to bring up other workmen (his chil- 
dren), to fill his place when he is gone ; part is, or ought 
to be, a fund for him when he is sick or aged, and una- 
ble to work. 

Next in the common meaning given to " capital " — 
i.e., the property employed to keep work going on stead- 
ily — it must not be supposed that the capital sets the la- 
borer to work. What sets him to work is the needs of 
those who will use his work. There is a sense in which 
the steam-engine and the w^ater- wheel set a flour-mill to 
work. In such a sense the capital of the employer may 
be said to set labor to work ; but every child will see 
that the real cause which sets such a mill to work is the 
willingness or wish of people to buy flour. Sometimes 
people talk as though the workman were under an obliga- 
tion to his employer, or as if the former depended en- 
tirely on the latter. Each depends on the other, just as 
the blades of a pair of scissors do, before they will cut 
any thing, and the advantage is mutual. 

The employer, therefore, gets wages for the work he 
does just as the workman does ; but he also gets an inter- 
est on the property he lays out. So does the workman ; 
but the interest which the workman gets is mixed up 
with his wages, and in order that it may be found out, 
such an examination as I have given you is needed. 



LESSON XIII. 



THE USE OF GOLD AND SILVER. 

I HAVE said, several times, that men are led to work 
by their wants, and that the work which one man does 
is exchanged against the work which another man does. 
The agents for bringing about this exchange are those 
middlemen who are called employers, merchants, or 
shopkeepers, as the way in which they do this service 
differs or varies. 

But it is very rare to see goods bartered against 
goods ; it is never the case that they are valued against 
each other. Generally peoj)le take bits of metal instead 
of goods, and they always reckon the value of what 
they buy in these bits of metal. In common language, 
they give a price to what they sell or buy. 

Now why should people do this ? Bits of gold, sil- 
ver, and copper do not seem to have any real use; they 
do not satisfy any of the great needs of life. The ut- 
most use one can put them to is to fasten them to one's 
clothes, in order to make one's self look smart. Some 
people do this. And yet everybody is willing — nay, 
anxious — to take these pieces of metal. 

The fact is these pieces of metal save a vast deal of 
trouble. If it were not for them, the workman who has 
made a chair, and wants to buy bread, would have to 



THE USE OF GOLD AND SILVER. 



63 



find a baker who wants a chair, before he could get his 
wants supplied ; and this, I need hardly say, would cause 
a terrible waste of time. Clearly there is only one thing 
to do. It is necessary to discover something which ev- 
erybody is willing to take. If this be once found out, 
there will be no difficulty in the chairmaker getting 
bread, provided some one is found who will buy his 
chair. 

~Now I have said that everybody is willing to take 
money, and because everybody is willing to take it. it is 
the easiest thing to get rid of, the most convenient 
means with which to supply one's wants. There is 
nothing which is generally so easv to sell as money — at 
least under ordinary circumstances. During the late 
siege of Paris it was not so easy to sell it, because food 
and similar necessaries were so scarce ; but when noth- 
ing out of the way hajDpens, there is no object which 
gives its possessor so much power over property. 

The man who takes it does not mean to keep it. It 
does not increase in value because he keeps it. The 
only way in which it can be turned to account is to get 
rid of it. A person who hoards or saves it does not do 
so merely in order to keep it, for a bag of stones would 
in such a case, as the old fable says, be as good as a bag 
of money is, but because he knows he can get rid of it 
when he pleases with advantage or pleasure to himself. 
They who save to the most purjDose get rid of their 
money the quickest, either by buying articles to trade 
with, or materials to work on, or by hiring labor, in 
the making railroads, building houses, and the like, or 
in lending it to those who do those things. 

The sooner the money, then, passes from hand to 
hand, the better does it serve the purpose for which it 



64 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



was discovered and adapted. It is intended to circulate, 
It is called currency, from a Latin word which means to 
rim; because the more speedy is its action, and the 
more numerous are the bargains for which it is used, 
the more useful do people find it, For the same reason 
those countries which are the busiest, and which there- 
fore use their money to the most purpose, are able to do 
with fewer pieces of money than other countries where 
the same speed of circulation is not attained. 

How useful money is, may be easily reckoned if one 
thinks what would be the consequence if all the money 
of a country were suddenly to vanish. Such an event 
would cause the greatest confusion and distress. In 
time, no doubt, matters would right themselves, either 
by the fresh introduction of more money, or by the dis- 
covery of something else which would seiwe to measure 
the value of things, or by some standard or measure 
which should express the market worth of whatever is 
wanted. For though there is no race of men, possess- 
ing the least civilization, which does not measure the 
worth of the things which the people produce and ex- 
change, yet some have no use of metals, employing other 
articles instead. 

Apart from the convenience which money affords 
buyers and sellers on a small scale, it has a further ser- 
vice, as a measure or means of calculating value. 

Trade on a large scale is always in goods. Thus, 
for example, if this country trades with France, it buys 
French goods with American goods, or with goods 
which have been bought with American ^oods. Unless 
it is found convenient to do so, one country does not 
pay the other money ; and when it is found convenient, 
the money paid is not really money, but metal, since 



THE USE OF GOLD AND SILVER. 



65 



French money is not current in the United States, nor is 
American money in France. 

But though no money passes between the two coun- 
tries, the American merchant makes out his bill in dol- 
lars and cents ; the French merchant his in francs and 
centimes. These different kinds of money are com- 
pared at a certain rate — L e., five francs and a fraction 
are reckoned to be worth an American dollar. Xor 
would it be possible to carry on the trade between the 
two countries, except on the basis of some such reckon- 
ing. There are different qualities of goods — say of wine 
and cloth — and these qualities must be expressed in 
some form, standard, or measure. 

Children who read this little book, no doubt, have 
learned a little of what are called vulgar fractions. Now 
you cannot add fractions, or subtract fractions, without 
finding out the common denominator, as it is called, of 
the two quantities which are to be treated. So it is with 
exchanges. You cannot strike a bargain until you have 
agreed upon some measure which shall give the worth 
or the price of these objects which are to be exchanged. 

Money then, or a measure of value, is not only a con- 
venience but a necessity; and a strange thing about it is, 
that it is most necessary, even when it is not actually 
used. 



LESSON XIV. 



M02JEY. 

. It is not so very difficult to see why people must 
take something by which they may measure the value of 
every thing else, and how inconvenient it would be were 
no such standard or measure to be found. But why 
have they chosen bits of two metals to be the means for 
this measurement ? It seems as though it were impos- 
sible for any society of men to make any way in civiliza- 
tion, unless they have some such means of bargaining. 
But why take gold and silver as the general and ready 
reckoners of all values '? 

Xow my readers may perhaps remember that I have 
said, more than once, that the value of all objects, ser- 
vices, articles, etc.. is measured by the cost of getting 
them. It will be clear also that in taking something 
which shall measure any other thing, it is of importance 
that the measure itself should change as little as possi- 
ble. Apart from their use as money, gold and silver 
have other and very important uses, and therefore are lia- 
ble to vary in value as well as other things do. 

But within a limited period — such a time I mean as 
a person would keep gold and silver by him — these 
articles change less in value than any other thing be- 
sides. Over a long period they are subject to changes 



MONEY. 



67 



in value. Thus, a pound weight of silver, five hundred 
years ago, would have bought four times as much of the 
necessaries of life as it now would. But from day to 
day, week to week, year to year, money varies in value 
less than any thing else. There are two reasons for this. 
First, gold and silver are generally obtained in nearly 
equal quantities at nearly equal cost. Y^ou hear some- 
times of some lucky miner who has found a great lump 
of gold, or has come across some very rich vein of sil- 
ver; but these things are rare. The great majority of 
those who seek for either give a great deal of labor for 
every ounce or pound they get : so much labor that noth- 
ing but the very high price they obtain for these metals 
would induce them to work for them at all. The la- 
bor which gets gold out of rocks is very costly. It 
exists, as a rule, in such small quantities in very hard 
rocks, that it cannot be seen, but can be gathered only 
by crushing the rock to powder, and then mixing it 
with another metal, which has the property of melt- 
ing out the gold, in just the same way that water dis- 
solves salt. 

There have been times in history when gold and sil- 
ver have been obtained at greatly diminished cost. This 
was the case in the sixteenth century, when the Spanish 
conquerors of the Xew World became the possessors 
of great quantities of silver, and by their means the rest 
of the civilized world procured it. This wealth was 
obtained by the enforced labor of the native people, and 
was therefore, as far as the Spaniards were concerned, 
cheaply won. But such occurrences are very rare, and 
for the sake of humanity we will hope that they will 
never recur. 

Next, the stocks of the precious metal* — as gold and 



68 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



silver are called — are so large, that any notable increase 
to their quantity in any one year will have little effect 
in diminishing the value of that which has already been 
collected. If the crops in any one year are greatly in 
excess of those which are generally garnered, the prices 
of farm-produce will greatly fall, since most of that 
which is produced in any year is consumed in the same 
year, or before the next harvest. And on the other 
hand, when there are very scanty crops, there is a great 
rise in the price of such produce. But the stock of gold 
and silver already existing is very large, and therefore a 
great increase obtained in any one year is lost in the far 
greater quantity which society possesses. If a storm 
occurs in the mountains, the little brooks swell speedily 
into great torrents ; but if there be a vast lake into 
which these torrents fall, very little effect will be pvo- 
duced upon it by the quantity of water which has fallen 
in any storm, however heavy may be the fall of water 
during the time the rain lasts. 

Next, gold and silver represent great value in small 
compass. To get them requires great labor. They are 
generally found in regions where there is little else, 
whither the food of the miner has to be carried at great 
expense; and they are obtained by expensive processes. 
Were these metals cheaply .got, their use would be seri- 
ously lessened, as it would take so much of each in or- 
der to exchange for goods. 

Next, they are almost incapable of being destroyed. 
Gold is not tarnished by any natural substance, silver by 
hardly any ; hence they suffer no waste by being kept 
and used, beyond wear. A man who takes gold and 
silver expects that hereafter he will be able to get rid of 
them, on as good terms as he could have obtained when 



MONEY. 



69 



he received them ; but he would not be sure of this if 
they wasted, or underwent any change. 

Again, they may be cut up into small pieces, and put 
together again with ease. A weight of gold and silver 
is of the game value whether it be in small or large 
pieces. In many objects small pieces are of little or no 
value, while large pieces are of great value. This is 
the case with precious stones, for the large are scarce, 
and the small by comparison common. Little and great 
however, would be of equal value, if the stones could 
be melted into a mass as easily as pieces of metal can. 

Lastly, they are capable of being marked in such a 
manner as that even a child can understand their value. 
This marking or coining pieces of money is always the 
business of Government, because it is of great conse- 
quence that the fineness of the money, and also the weight 
of the piece, should be certified, though the former is the 
most important. To issue base money is a great offence, 
not only because it is a particularly mean kind of steal- 
ing, but because it is one which puts the greatest hard- 
ship on those who can bear it the least — namely, the 
poor and inexj^erienced. 

The above are the qualities which, being possessed 
by gold and silver, and being shared by no other objects 
whatever, have caused those metals to be chosen by 
almost universal consent, as the measure of value and 
the means of exchange. When they are supplied, and 
can be used, they are always accepted by races which 
are capable of being civilized ; while such races as will 
not or cannot use them always melt away before more 
robust and vigorous nations, since their ignorance and 
incapacity puts them to so serious a disadvantage beside 
their neighbors and rivals. 



70 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



These metals may be compared to the oil which 
makes machinery go smoothly. The force of the ma- 
chine is given it when it is completed and moved ; but 
unless oil is supplied to the joints, valves, or axles, the 
machine cannot continue in motion, but is speedily 
clogged and stopped. 



LESSON XV. 



SUBSTITUTES FOE MO^EY. 

Amostg the reasons which have induced men to adopt 
gold and silver as a means for carrying on trade is, as I 
have said before, that these metals represent great value 
in small compass. But this very reason induces the 
people who use them to use as little as they can of them. 
They cost very much, and therefore men strive to lay 
out as little cost as possible on them. ISTow there are 
two ways in which the use of these metals is narrowed. 
One is to make each piece do for as many acts of trade 
as possible, or in other words, to change hands as often 
as may be. 

Unless men trust each other, they are obliged to 
take every possible care against risk. In a country 
where there is little confidence between man and man, 
where trust is warily and scantily given, there is need 
for far more money than in a country where confidence 
and mutual trust are the rule. Everybody who is not 
living from hand to mouth keeps some small stock of 
money in his possession, in order to meet his every-day 
wants ; but when distrust is general, prudence requires 
persons to keep a larger stock of this kind of property, 
and consequently to use more money. The civilization 
of a country is not measured by the amount of gold and 



72 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



silver which it has, but by the integrity, mutual trust, 
and intelligence of its inhabitants. It is possible that the 
people" of a half-barbarous country like Turkey may have 
more money than a thriving and busy country like our 
own ; but the money is not turned to so good an ac- 
count. 

The other way in which the use of money is saved, 
is to discover some substitute for its use. Now, long 
ago, persons have found out that bits of paper, having no 
value in themselves, but giving the possessor of them a 
right to claim a sum of money, would, in many particu- 
lars, serve the purpose of the real money, and in some 
cases would be more convenient. This substitute for the 
use of money is called a bank-note. 

Now it is not to be expected, in a little work like 
this, intended for beginners in social science, that I can 
enter into all the peculiarities belonging to such a use of 
printed pieces of paper ; the subject would be too long, 
and the explanation in detail would be too difficult. But 
in order to understand this part of the social system un- 
der which we live, it is almost necessary to know a little 
about the use of these pieces of paper, since they play 
so important a part in trade and exchange. 

It is no use to try to circulate these pieces of paper, 
unless the person who takes them is quite certain that 
he will get the sum of money which they profess to be 
worth, whenever he wishes it. Men take money itself 
because it is the most convenient and ready way of sup- 
plying their wants. A man with five dollars has a much 
greater command over what he needs, than a man has 
with five dollars' worth of goods — as of shoes, bread, or 
furniture. 

So if men take any thing which pretends to represent 



SUBSTITUTES FOR MONEY. 



73 



money, it is no use to offer them something instead of 
money, however valuable that may be which is offered. 
If the piece of paper promises to pay them five dollars, 
it will not satisfy them if the person who pledges to pay 
this money offers to pay them five dollars' worth of 
something. If they suspect that the person who prom- 
ises money intends to pay them something else, they 
will not take and use his bits of paper, or will not use 
them very long. 

Plain as this may seem to us, it has taken a very long 
time to make the rule understood. At different times, 
governments have tried to circulate such pieces of paper, 
and in place of giving money, have offered land, or other 
property. The attempt has always been a failure — a 
loss, and occasionally a great public misfortune. 

Xow if the pieces of paper thus put out were ex- 
actly equal in value to the money for which they are 
used, and exactly that sum of money were kept by the 
person who promised to pay the quantity of money 
which each of these papers represent, no gain or advan- 
tage would be made by the persons who circulate the 
paper ; but a certain loss would be incurred in the labor 
of preparing these pieces of paper, and in that of keep- 
ing an account of them. They who use the papei 
would have some advantages. The gold and silvei 
would not wear at all, and the loss of the piece of paper 
need — with proper care taken — be no real loss to th^ 
person who possessed it, because if he could give an ac- 
count of the paper, he might, in time, be repaid its value. 

But the persons who put this paper into circulation rind 
out, after a time, that they can send a great deal more 
of these papers out than they have money at any moment 
to pay with, provided always that people will trust to 
4 



74 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



them. The rest they can employ in other objects ink- 
ing care to have their property in such a shape that if 
there be some sudden need for more money, they shall 
he able to get it together in a very short timp. In other 
words, the promise to pay will be taken as readily as 
real money will, and for a time do everything that real 
money does. 

The sending out these bits of printed paper is part 
of the business which a banker carries on. It is not in- 
deed his only business, for he does other things which 
are, as I have said, too difficult for beginners in this sub- 
ject to understand. This, however, I hope they will 
understand — that a bank-note is something which may 
be used instead of money ; that its use saves some of 
that very expensive article, and that it therefore enables 
trade to be carried on with some lessening of cost. 

I have now pointed out to you what are the general 
rules which belong to labor and trade, why it is men la- 
bor, and why they exchange with each other the pro- 
duce of their several kinds of industry. This is, from 
one point of view, an account of the way in which soci- 
ety grows, and is held together. Men live together in 
order to do each other benefit, to supply each other's 
wants; and they are able to do this best when each man 
betakes himself to that kind of work for which he is fit- 
test, and for which his neighbor has some need. Social 
life is like a vast machine composed of a great number 
of parts ; each of these parts, however, assists the other 
parts — is necessary or convenient to the working of the 
whole. 



LESSON XVI. 



FREEDOM A^D SLAVERY. 

If everybody were wise and just; if no wrong 
were done by man to man, and no injury inflicted on na- 
tion by nation ; if every man were sure to get the fruit 
of his labor, to pass his life without suffering injustice — 
if, in short, there were no bad and cruel people in the 
world, the sketch which I have given you of social life 
might be completed in the pages which you have already 
studied. 

Unfortunately, we are far removed from so pleasant 
a state of things. It is necessary that persons should be 
protected in the peaceful exercise of their labor, and ir 
the peaceful enjoyment of that which they have earned 
by their labor. They who have wealth require to be 
checked, lest they oppress those who are more or less in 
their power. Those who are poor sometimes need an- 
other kind of check, lest they try to violently seize that 
which they do not possess, but which they see others 
possess. In brief, the most civilized nation needs law 
and government, in order that it may be kept together. 

Law professes to declare what are rights and what 
are wrongs, and proposes to defend rights and correct 
wrongs — to secure each man in the possession of that 
which really belongs to him, and to protect him from any 



76 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



attempt on the part of others to interrupt his enjoyment 
of that which does belong to him. These rights, again, 
either belong to a man's person or to his property — by 
property being meant whatever a man has lawfully ob- 
tained, and which, within certain limits, he can enjoy. 

Xow one of the most important rights which a per- 
son can be held to possess is that over his own labor. 
Xearly every civilized nation has agreed that no person 
can acquire a right to the perpetual labor of another person 
— or, in other words, make him a slave. At different 
periods of their history all civilized nations have allowed 
the right of a master over a slave ; now nearly every 
nation refuses to allow it, and in case any person claims 
such a right, will decline to enforce it, and will give a 
remedy against all such as pretend to keep persons in 
slavery. 

Now how comes it to pass that so great a change as 
this has come over the spirit of civilized life ? Slavery 
prevailed in ancient Greece and Rome — two societies as 
much civilized in many particulars as we are. 

I believe that the first motive which led men to raise 
the question whether slavery was not always a wrong, 
which never could be justified, was the feeling that 
every man has certain natural rights, and that if he has 
any, personal freedom must surely be the first of these 
rights, seeing that, if it be absent, no other right can be- 
long to him. 

When persons began to hold this opinion, they found 
out speedily other reasons against holding men in per- 
petual bondage. It was seen that while slavery degrades 
the slave, it does nearly as much mischief to the owner 
of the slave. It is impossible to quench the wish for 
freedom, at least if any chance of escape appears to the 



FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 



77 



slave; and thus it became, or seemed to become, the in- 
terest of the slavemaster to make his slave ignorant and 
wretched, to reduce him as much as possible to the con- 
dition of a beast. ]STow no one can treat his fellow-man 
in this way without becoming brutal himself. 

Again, it was seen that if a man were to be kept in 
slavery, the law must put very little control on the acts 
of his owner. ISTow men become civilized, not by in- 
dulging passion, but by checking it ; not by ruling over 
others, but by ruling over themselves. The custom of 
slavery was therefore an aid to barbarism, no assistance 
to civilization. It produced grave moral evils in society, 
and was a lasting hindrance to good influences. 

Again, it was gradually discovered that where slavery 
prevails very little progress is ever made in the useful 
arts. The minds of the ancient Greeks and Romans 
were very much cultivated. These two nations made 
remarkable progress in what are called the fine arts. 
Their architecture and sculpture are even now models, 
for they have hardly been equalled in the one, and by no 
means equalled in the other. In the same way they 
were eminent in poetry and oratory, and they made great 
advances in many kinds of science. But they knew very 
little of the useful arts. They had hardly invented a 
single machine which should save labor — had discovered 
none of those forces which are so familiar to us. In con- 
sequence, despite their great culture, the knowledge they 
possessed, and the perfection to which they carried such 
civilization as they had, their whole social system 
crumbled away against the attacks of certain savage 
tribes. 

The fact is, the motive for saving labor by means of 
mechanical inventions nevei\came home to them. In 



78 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



the aneient world the labor of the hands was held to dis- 
honor a man, to be fit only for slaves. Now the princi- 
pal cause which has led men to invent labor-saving ma- 
chines is the impulse which I have stated before — that, 
namely, of getting the greatest possible recompense for 
one's labor, with the least possible outlay of labor. 
While a man is a slave, since all his labor, and all the 
fruits of his labor, belong to his owner, there can be no 
motive to save labor — no motive to the slave, for he will 
get nothing by it; no motive to the owner, for he dis- 
dains to lighten the slave's toil. Where slavery lives, 
invention is dead. 

Whenever free labor competes against slave labor, 
the former is sure to win the day, the latter to be found' 
expensive and uncertain. I do not mean to say that 
slave labor has not sometimes been profitable to the 
owner, but that whenever the two exist together the free 
man will work more cheaply — that is, to greater purpose 
than the slave. For it will be seen that the owner has 
to purchase or rear the slave, and therefore has to set 
down this article of cost. Then no man who works for 
another ever works with so much heart as when he is 
working for himself. A free man may be trusted; a 
slave always wants an overlooker. You can trust a free 
man to handle machinery or to manage such work as re- 
quires care and attention. But the slave has no motive 
to take care of that which is trusted to him, and hence 
he can only be put to the simplest kind of work with the 
commonest possible tools. 

Civilized nations, then, have refused to allow any one 
man a perpetual right to the labor of another, because 
freedom of labor is a natural right. But a man who com- 
mits crime forfeits to a greater or less extent his natural 



FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 



71) 



rights, and among them his natural rights of liberty. 
Hence all communities have their public slaves — i. e. y 
men condemned for a period, more or less prolonged, to 
compulsory labor on behalf of the State. To protect its 
subjects, a Government is obliged to restrain criminals. 
But it is not right that such persons should subsist in 
idleness ; hence it exacts labor from them, and for reasons 
conceived to be suincient, reduces them to the slavery 
which they have merited. 



LESSOX XVII. 



PARENT A IS* D CHILD. 

There are certain kinds of property — as that of a 
master over a slave — which civilized law will not recog- 
nize. There is another kind of property — as that of a 
parent over a child — which the law recognizes to a lim- 
ited extent. There have been countries in which a lath- 
er had the same rights over a child which some laws have 
given an owner over a slave. In ancient Rome the right 
was even larger and more enduring. 

A child owes his nurture and education to his pa- 
rents. He has received from them benefits of the high- 
est kind, which, though the duty of the parents renders 
them, are not the less grave to the child. But as law 
cannot allow the constant submission of one man's lib- 
erty to another, so it cannot permit the child to be con- 
stantly subject to the parents' will. There is a period 
when a j>arent's authority is no longer absolute, however 
much it should always be respected. 

During those years when the child is. in the eye of 
the law, unable to exercise his own discretion in his oc- 
cupation, the child is in a sense his parents' property. 
Custom may shorten or lengthen this time, but there al- 
ways is a period during which no one interferes with the 
parents' discretion, certain conditions being fulfilled. 



PARENT AND CHILD. 



81 



But civilized communities will not allow a parent to 
injure his child's health or to dwarf his mind by setting 
him to work too early or too long, and in our time, at 
last, by denying him education. In many countries edu- 
cation is compulsory— that is, the child must be taught 
under penalties. It is seen that to deny a child teach- 
ing, is to deny him a necessary of civilized life, which 
is inferior to what are called the common needs of 
life, only because these must be bestowed whatever else 
is given. 

There are laws which forbid the employment of chil- 
dren in certain kinds of work altogether, which only al- 
low a short time every day or week for employment in 
others, and which compel work and education to go on 
together, or at stated intervals. It is plain that by early 
working or overworking a child, a lifelong injury may be 
inflicted on them. 

It is the business of law to protect the weak against 
the strong. The greater part of the action of law 
has this object. To take a man's property from him 
unlawfully, to give him bodily pain, or inflict on him 
bodily hurt, to injure his character by false statements, 
is to lay a strong hand on one who is, in some direction 
or other, weaker than the wrong-doer. If such violence 
be permitted, the law fails to do its work. 

It is clear, then, why law protects children even 
against their parents. It does not follow that men will 
always make a right use of that which is their own, even 
when affection, duty 5 or interest might prompt them to 
do so. And as the good of one person may be made 
subject to the passion or caprice of another, it is nece» 
sary for law to protect the weaker person against wrong. 
It is seldom the case that parents lose their natural affec- 
4* 



82 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



tion for their children, but they do so often enough to 
justify the law in interfering. 

Besides, there are some instances in which the judg- 
ment of the law is better than that of the individual 
man : there are some in which it is worse. Generally 
a man can tell better than any law can inform him. what 
is the calling in which he is most likely to prosper. A 
law therefore which should pretend to dictate to any one 
which calling or business he should follow, is a mischiev- 
ous law. There are some countries where the law con- 
strains a son to follow his father's business. Xow in 
such countries very little progress is made. 

The judgment of the law is better, however, than 
that of a man on most matters of general interest, par- 
ticularly when the object for which the thing is done is 
neither very near nor very plain. For instance, there 
are many kinds of work which no man would ever pay 
for, because he is unable to see his own advantage in the 
purchase, or because he is not able to keep the advantage 
of the purchase to himself. Suppose, for example, that 
some man of science were able to prove that there is 
coal in the Gulf States, at a depth which might be 
worked. • Everybody who had land in which this coal 
might be found would gain a benefit by the discovery, 
but no one person could keep the knowledge to himself. 
If, therefore, such a discovery could be made, the law 
should reward such a person. Very many examples 
could be given of such kinds of work o* service. 

But the case is still stronger in the matter of general 
education. The best result of a good education is that 
it enables the man who has it, to do what he has to do 
in a far shorter time than he could without it, or to do 
that which he could not have done at all without it. 



PARENT AND CHILD. 



83 



For instance, a savage can seldom count more than ten. 
and can do nothing beyond this very beginning of arith- 
metic. A child who has been taught a few rules can 
rapidly do that by which the cleverest savage would be 
foiled. A man who has learnt to read and write will 
learn a soldiers drill in half the time that a wholly igno- 
rant recruit will need for the same result. Education, 
in short, is to know the best way how to do any thing. 
It is said that the Xorthern Germans, who are all edu- 
cated, are the handiest men in the world, because their 
minds are trained, and are therefore always alert. 

It is not, however, wonderful that ignorant people 
cannot understand the value of education, any more 
than deaf men can the beauty of a piece of good music. 
Sometimes, to be sure, parents who are themselves 
ignorant can see the advantage which learning gives to 
him who has it. and are therefore, from natural affection, 
willing or anxious that their children should gain 
advantages which they themselves do not possess. But 
there is no little risk that they will not notice this 
benefit. 

Here, then, the law steps in. It takes as it were the 
survey of the whole landscape. If your eyes wander 
ov er a distant view, such as that which you get from a 
high hill, or a lofty building, you can gain a general idea 
of the scene which is spread out before you. though you 
may not be able to see the faces of those who are in 
the streets below, or tell what the trees are which rise 
in the distant fields. So it is with the State. It can- 
not tell what each man should do for his own particular 
work, but it can direct, and that with certainty, what 
must be obtained by all, in order that each may do his 
own work in the best way, 



LESSON XYin. 



PUBLIC EDUCATION, 

The law may insist on the education of the people. 
There are two reasons why it should do so. One of 
them is that the educated person is of more use to his 
fellow-men than an untaught person, or as may be said 
in other words, is less dangerous to others. The other 
is that the educated person is more useful to himself. 
Xow if it can be shown that the same process makes 
a man more serviceable to his neighbor, and more pros- 
perous in his own fortunes, it needs very little argument 
to prove that the process is a very wholesome one. 

I have already said that a man who has been taught 
one thing, learns other things more quickly than a person 
who is wholly untaught. A man who has learnt to be 
a carpenter, and requires to be instructed in the art of a 
smith, will learn to be a smith sooner than he would if 
he had been taught no other handicraft. A man who has 
learned French, or Latin, or Greek thoroughly, will master 
German more easily than one who has never known any 
other language than his mother-tongue. He who has 
learnt only one language, says the proverb, has learnt 
none. A man who has learned to ride, or to swim, will 
learn to skate more rapidly than one who has never pat 
a horse, or kept himself afloat in water. 



PUBLIC EDUCATION. 



85 



Of course there are some kinds of teaching which 
make the mind more easily active than others do — that 
is, which are better instruments of education. They 
who have given their attention to the discovery of the 
best instruments of education always propose to them- 
selves to settle what is the best means for making the 
mind generally active. Experience has proved that if 
a person has been taught certain things, he will learn 
every thing more easily than if he had been taught other 
things. For example, though a person will not readily 
learn language, because he has been taught to ride, he 
will learn to ride more easily when he has been taught 
language. 

The kind of learning which makes a man apt to learn 
other things is that which gives a man the habit of 
thinking without seeing — which enables him to follow 
out in his mind something which may be thought of, 
without the need of seeing any thing which should 
remind him of it. Thus mathematics are a great aid to 
education, because they assist this power. In arith- 
metic we think of numbers without considering the 
objects which those numbers represent. In a still more 
marked manner is this the case with higher mathe- 
matics — with algebra, geometry, trigonometry. So 
language, particularly a language which, having, been 
highly cultivated, has been rendered unchangeable 
because it has ceased to be spoken, is a very powerful 
means of mental culture. The study of mathematics 
and of language gives men the power of exact and rapid 
thought, and enables them to be quick and intelligent. 

When a man learns rapidly, he is plainly able to do 
his fellow-man a service, sooner and more completely, 
than he does if he is slow. I am, of course, speaking 



86 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



of those services which, being useful, are understood 
and valued. A boy is taken as an apprentice to learn 
some skilful trade. The boy who learns the trade in 
half the time that another takes, is by far the more 
valuable apprentice of the tAVO. He begins to earn his 
cost much earlier. The wisest and the most useful 
men in the world have taken the pains to learn their 
work thoroughly, and to do their work well. Now such 
persons have always been taught some things which 
have aided them in gaining the special knowledge which 
they want. In short, there are some kinds of knowl- 
edge which are uniformly useful for every other kind of 
knowledge, and to understand and impart this knowl- 
edge is to educate people ; to get the knowledge is to 
be educated, in greater or less degree according as this 
master knowledge is imparted. 

It is still a question as to which is the best kind of 
master knowledge. It is likely that the question would 
never have been asked, if there had not been several 
kinds of training ; every one of which is very useful for 
the end which all education has in view. It is probable 
that no one will ever be able to answer the question, be- 
cause there are several kinds of this master knowledge, 
and so many varieties of mind that one kind of knowl- 
edge suits this mind best, another that. The real ques- 
tion is, whether the mind of each person is really trained 
by what he has learned. Some people grow strong on 
a meat diet ; some on a bread or vegetable diet. The 
most important thing to those who wish to be strong is, 
not what kind of food is most suitable generally, but 
what suits each the best. 

Next, education is — as indeed, you will have guessed 
from what I have already said — a great service to the 



PUBLIC EDUCATION. 



87 



man who has it. If you have ever noticed a clumsy per- 
son trying to do a thing which Wholly puzzles him, and 
a handy person doing the same thing with great ease, 
you will see how it is a service. You may have seen a 
person who is unable to do something, and have watched 
him while he is being taught the way to do it by some 
one who is experienced. Then as you see the person 
who is taught brighten up when he learns the way. you 
will understand how useful knowledge is. 

Of course, if a few persons know how to do a thing 
well, they will have a great advantage over their neigh- 
bors. That which to others is a toil, is to them a 
pleasure. See how painful is the effort by which a boy 
who is beginning to learn reading, cons over his task, 
and spells the words. Xow look at the same boy when 
he has got a mastery over that which he has been en- 
gaged on, and compare his looks as he reads a pleasant 
book, with the same looks, if you can remember them, 
when he began to read. In this way you can understand 
the advantage which ^a really able man. who has thor- 
oughly cultivated his mind, has over those who do not 
possess his gifts. 

But suppose everybody were well taught, would 
any one have an advantage then ? It is hard to conceive 
everybody equally well taught, and therefore a uniform 
level in all minds. Such a thing will never happen if we 
can judge of the future by the past : but it is easy to 
imagine the case of a whole nation which is well edu- 
cated; there are such nations. 

Xow such a nation will be vastly better off than 
other nations which are not so benefited. But it might, 
indeed, it would be the case, that the education not giv- 
ing them a special advantage at heme, not one of them 



88 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



would have any advantage over his fellow- countrymen. 
Is their education, then, of no value ? It is of the great- 
est. It has made them handy ; it has made them work 
easier. If they have used what they possess wisely, 
they can do the same things with half the toil and labor 
that they must have given before they were trained. A 
skilled person goes straight to the mark, while an un- 
skilled one wastes time in finding out what the mark is, 
and what is the way to it. 



LESSOR XIX, 



SPECIAL LEARXI2sG. 

There is a certain kind of education which every- 
body ought to have ; but it is not very easy to decide 
what its extent should be. We know where it begins, 
but we cannot say where it should end. All allow that 
everybody should be taught to read, to write, and to 
reckon ; and that he should do these things easily. The 
fact is, these three kinds of learning must be got before 
any other kind of learning can be. After they are ob- 
tained, they are used for getting further knowledge : but 
where or when this knowledge should stop is not easy to 
say. In a sense, whenever these three needful portions 
of knowledge are possessed, people who use their pow- 
ers never cease learning. 

On the other hand, it is certain that there are many 
kinds of knowledge, all of which no man can get, for 
the reason that no man's life is long; enough to collect 
them. The most learned man in the world knows only 
a portion — probably a very small portion — of that which 
can be known. Besides, the rule which I laid down 
before, that the greatest results are obtained by a divis- 
ion of employments, holds good in learning as it does 
in manual industry. The sum of human knowledge is 
so vast, that to know any one branch of it properly re- 



90 SOCIAL ECOXOMY. 

quires constant attention. Thus one man learns law, 
another physic: one man studies chemistry, another 
mechanics, another geology, and so on. As the gath- 
ered knowledge of mankind gets to be greater, the study 
of all kinds of knowledge is more and more divided or 
distributed. 

Xow, when that which people know is saleable, there 
is no need that anybody should interfere in order that 
this knowledge should be acquired. This is plainly the 
case in what may be called the common callings of life. 
There is no need that people should be instructed in 
different kinds of industry at the public expense : if 
they were, they who obtain this knowledge would in the 
end be none the better for being taught, since as I have 
already shown, the wages of every calling stand in close 
proportion to the cost at which the laborer has been 
prepared for his calling. 

V There are. however, as I have shown, certain kinds 
of knowledge which are very valuable, but which are 
not very saleable. The most serviceable man whom 
any society can possess is a really great statesman — 
a man who can deal wisely and justly with all interests, 
and can take care that no force or power in society is 
able to oppress or wrong any other, or take that to itself 
to which it is not entitled. If the service which such a 
man does could be reckoned at its true worth, there is 
hardly any price which is too high for so useful and so 
rare a service. But nobody ever thinks of paying a real 
statesman for his services: perhaps because it is so very 
rare that they do occur, are given, and are accepted. 
Generally a statesman is paid in honor, though some- 
times he does not get that before it is too late. 

Other persons, too. engage themselves in pursuits 



SPECIAL LEARNING. 



91 



which are of very great use to mankind ; but they often 
do not find their services saleable, either because nobody 
sees their usefulness, or because everybody sees the use- 
fulness, and everybody is able, after being shown the 
way, to do what these people have found out. It is very 
often the case that something which it is very hard to 
find out at first, is very easy to copy afterwards. A 
man may give the labor of half a life to that which 
another may imitate in five minutes. The very greatest 
discoveries are often so very simple that people often 
wonder why they were not found out long before. 
Some man by his patience and shrewdness has put them 
so completely into the hands of others, that they can 
never be forgotten. Take, for example, the arts of 
printing and pf paper-making, and the invention of 
steam-power. 

Xow there are several ways in which these persons 
may be paid. The State — that is, the whole people of 
any country, acting through its Government — may give 
a reward to the inventor for the benefit he has conferred 
on mankind. Thus a sum of money was given to Jen- 
ner. the physician who discovered vaccination. This per- 
son found out by patient and diligent inquiry that there 
was a simple and safe means of preventing a hideous 
and dangerous disease. It is said that small-pox is a dis- 
order which man originally caught from an animal — 
namely, the camel ; and it was found that when the same 
disease occurred in another animal, the cow. they who 
caught it from the cow had a very mild or slight com- 
plaint, and were afterwards safe. 

After Jenner found this out, had proved the truth of 
his discovery, and told it to others, there was nothing 
to prevent anybody from using the remedy. Honest 



92 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



physicians never have secrets, always looking on those 
who pretend to medical secrets as impostors, or as they 
call them, quacks. They are, most probably, in the 
right, when they hold this opinion. So of course Jen- 
ner published his discovery. In order to reward him 
for his services, in some degree at least, the English na- 
tion through its Parliament voted him a sum of money. 
I imagine that if he could have kept it a secret, he might 
have made a large fortune, such as is made by many who 
discover something, make it a mystery, and are praised 
afterwards by their admirers, because they have grown 
rich. 

Let us take another example. Thirty years ago, or 
rather more, a person who was employed in the English 
Post Office thought out a new notion about the carriage 
and delivery of letters. He argued that the carriage 
of a letter was a small business, and that all the work 
lay in the delivery of it. Hence he suggested that there 
should be a uniform rate of charge for delivering letters, 
because, the old rule that letters should be charged ac- 
cording to distance, was founded on a mistake. Noth- 
ing can be more simple and more clear. It is so plain 
a principle that one wonders why it was not seen and 
allowed long before Rowland Hill found it out. What 
the benefit was to the people, is matter of knowledge to 
those who are old enough to remember the old system, 
and how they who were separated from their friends 
had to pay a penalty for the right of sending a letter to 
them. 

Now in this case Hill could not keep his discovery a 
profitable secret, since by a kind of chance wisdom, 
letters in this and in all civilized countries besides, 
are carried by the Government. So he made his plan 



SPECIAL LEAENIXG. 



93 



known. It was not received with great favor, and for 
some time after it had been received and acted on, Hill 
was made to feel that it is not always well to be wiser 
than other people. At last, however, it was allowed 
that the plan was really a good one. There was only 
one way in which the inventor could be rewarded, and 
this was by a gift of public money. It is very seldom that 
public money has been so well bestowed. 



LESSON XX. 



tNTEKTIOlTS AXD BOOKS. 

I HAVE told you of one way in which a great public 
service, when it cannot be otherwise paid for, is some- 
times rewarded. There is another and a far commoner 
way. The ingenuity of man has been directed into the 
finding out the art of making all sorts of things prop- 
erty — that is, of putting a limit on the use which may be 
made of such things. Sometimes this artificial limita- 
tion has taken the form of compelling the public at large 
to buy nothing except what has been made in the coun- 
try, or at least of putting an extra price in the shape of 
a tax on that which has been produced in other coun- 
tries. In the history of this country, a man or a com- 
pany of men has sometimes conquered a territory, and 
has been permitted in return to have the sole right of 
selling certain articles in or from that country. Some- 
times none but those who have gone through a certain 
course of education, and have been duly certified as 
knowing a particular art or craft, are allowed to practise 
the art. Sometimes persons have this privilege because 
they have been for a certain number of times in a dining- 
room. Sometimes the person who has written a book, 
or invented some useful thing, is permitted, on cone Jon 



INVENTIONS AND BOOKS. 



95 



of his publishing the book, or giving an exact descrip- 
tion of what he has invented, and how he makes it, to 
have the sole right of selling book or invention for a 
fixed number of years. 

There is a defence given for these privileges. It is 
said — and perhaps in past times it might have been said 
with truth — that unless persons had this protection or 
assistance for special industry or intelligence, the world 
would never have made any progress whatever in art or 
science. Be this true or not, it is certain that whenever 
any check is put on any man, so that he cannot exercise 
his own judgment or choice in what he wants to make, 
to sell, or to buy, reason should be shown why the re- 
straint is good for the people at large. 

In this lesson I shall speak of the last two kinds of 
property created by law. There are the right which 
an author has to print his own books, and the right which 
an inventor has to the profit of his own inventions. 
Both these rights are secured by law — could not indeed 
be secured in any other way ; for it is plain that when 
an author prints a book, there is nothing in nature to 
prevent another person from printing it anew; or when 
a machinist sells a machine, or other invention, from 
another j^erson copying what he has made. Xow it is 
manifest that in either case the second person, supposing 
that he is able to sell the book or the machine as easily 
and as readily as the author and inventor can, would be 
using the labor of either to his own advantage, and at 
no cost to himself This seems like robbery, for rob- 
bery is getting property for which a man has never 
worked, and to which he has no right. 

If it can be shown that the right to exercise one's 
own judgment in the choice of one's own industry may 



96 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



lead a man into taking another person's work without 
paying for it, and therefore may seriously hinder very 
valuable labor, the case in favor of giving an author or 
an inventor a legal property in his book, or in his inven- 
tion, is quite made out. There are, indeed, some persons 
who argue that an author is very considerably protected 
by the fact of his being the first to sell the work he 
writes, and that he would be perfectly protected if no- 
body were able to reprint his book with his name. So 
it is said, on the other hand, that no invention is ever the 
produce of one man's mind, but of several, and that the 
legal right of sole sale only confers on one person a prop- 
erty which is just as much the right of several other 
persons. 

There is a difference between a book and an inven- 
tion. The author of a book uses a material which is 
common to any man — namely, the words of a particular 
language, and sometimes facts which are every one's 
right ; as, for example, when he compiles a history. But 
the rest of the labor is wholly his own. He chooses the 
words he uses, and he originates, or supplies from his 
own mind, the arguments or comments which he con- 
structs or makes. Sometimes he has only taken the 
language, as when he is a poet. Now it will be clear 
that no two persons could by any probability have thought 
of using the same words in the same way. If, for ex- 
ample, a man were to publish a drama word for word 
the same as one of Shakspeare's, and say that he never 
read Shakspeare's works, but that by some strange 
chance he had thought exactly and written exactly as 
Shakspeare did, we should know what to think of him. 
Xay, if there were sentences in the drama -resembling 
those of Shakspeare, we should not believe him if he 



INVENTIONS AND BOOKS. 



97 



asserted ever so strongly that they were his own com- 
position. 

But it is quite possible for. two persons, or more than 
two, to have made at the same time the same invention. 
There are those who say that there never has been any 
great discovery made in art or science, except by more 
than one person ; that the difference between a book and 
an invention is total on this point. It is also said that 
while it is very easy to reprint a book, it is not so easy 
to copy a machine, and that therefore there is more need 
of protection in the former than in the latter. 

However this may be, the law creates a right of prop- 
erty in books and inventions, calling the one copyright, 
the other pa tent -right. The first of these belongs to the 
book directly it is published, and after the fulfilment of cer- 
tain conditions. The latter belongs to an invention only 
after a legal form is gone through, which is attended 
with no little expense. In general, the duration of the 
property in an invention is much shorter than that in a 
book; and it may be added the right which the law 
creates is generally more valuable in the former than in 
the latter case. 

The law also creates a property in a name or a sym- 
bol. If for example, an author or a publisher starts a 
magazine or newspaper under a certain name, the law 
will not allow another person to take that name. In the 
same way the law will not permit the imitation of a 
trade mark. Now the reason for this is twofold. In 
part, the adoption of a name or symbol which another 
person has made his own, and which he will of course 
take care to make distinctive or peculiar, is an invasion 
of that which may be called his property. In part, it is 
a fraud which nearly resembles forgery — that is. the imi- 
n 



98 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



tatiou of a person's signature on an order to pay money. 
The offence is not so serious, because a successful for- 
gery is a total fraud, against which no pains would se- 
cure any one ; while an imitation of a trade mark mere- 
ly substitutes one man's goods for another's. 



LESSOR XXI. 



RESTRAINTS OX BUYING AND SELLING. 

I mentioned that there were various ways in which 
the Government or the laws of a country give special 
assistance to certain industries, and that these privileges 
are accorded on the plea that the public good is served 
by that restraint on the freedom of others which the 
grant of a privilege always implies. It is probably for 
the good of the people at large that the right of prac- 
ticing medicine is confined to those who have obtained 
a certificate of proficiency, and that the rule which holds 
good in physic might be extended with advantage to 
other callings. At present, however, these restrictions 
on freedom of industry are rather lessened than increased 
in number. 

A hundred years ago, there was hardly a single call- 
ing, with the exception of farm labor, which any person 
could enter on without having been an apprentice, and 
sometimes without becoming the member of a trade 
company. There are parts of Europe — as for example 
in Southwestern Germany — where such a rule holds to 
the present day. It appears that the custom is not a 
good one, and that such privileged labor is apt to become 
very incompetent, and lacking in enterprise. 

Similarly, there is no country in the world, except 



100 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



England, where other people have the right of buying 
and selling to the best advantage, that is. without any 
artificial restrictions. If an Englishman wishes to buy 
a coat or a pair of shoes, he has the right to purchase 
either a London, or a country, or a foreign article at his 
pleasure. In other countries, however, it is the general 
rule that either the people are wholly forbidden to buy 
from foreigners, or are obliged to pay a heavy tax if 
they still have so good an opinion of foreign goods that 
they will have them, even at the increased price.* 

Xow it is quite clear that when such a hindrance is 
put on the person who wishes to supply himself with 
what he wants, a loss is put on him. If the customer's 

* It must be said, however, in regard to this view, that a good 
many people in America and Europe, believe that it is of consid- 
erable advantage to the community to oblige buyers to get their 
goods from their immediate neighbors, rather than from the for- 
eign manufacturers. 

They claim that while the buyer for the moment pays more 
for the goods, the community to which he belongs is benefited by 
having the articles manufactured and used at home, and that the 
general welfare must be considered, rather than that of the indi- 
vidual buyer. 

The question is a very complicated one, and cannot be dis- 
cussed here. Those who believe that buying and selling should be 
unrestricted by the G-overnment, are called Free-traders. Those 
who claim that foreign goods should be taxed, so that as many ar- 
ticles as possible should be manufactured at home, are called Pro- 
tectionists. The writer of this book is a Free-trader. At the 
present date, 1872, England is the only country whose G-overnment 
has adopted in full what are called Free-trade principles. Holland 
and Belgium have adopted them in part, while France, G-ermany, 
Spain, Italy, and the United States have, by placing greater or 
smaller taxes upon foreign goods, followed the theories of the pro- 
tectionists. — Editor. 



RESTRAINTS ON BUYING AND SELLING. 1Q1 



own country could sell him articles as cheap and good as 
the foreign country can, there would be no need to put 
the restraint on him. and the restraint would not be put 
on him. No one in France would think of putting a 
tax on English wine, because England makes no wine 
which is as good as that which France makes. No 
Chinese would think of taxing English tea, no Austra- 
lian of taxing English meat. Any restraint, then, which 
is put on a customer is a certain loss. 

Again, it is clear that when the tax is first put on, it 
is a gain to the man who makes or, at least, to the man 
who has a stock of the articles. If any man could com- 
pel everybody in his neighborhood to deal at his shop, 
he would make a large profit, as long as there was no 
other shop to compete with him. For a time at least, 
then, this restraint is a gain to the dealer. But when 
people find out that great profits can be made out of any 
trade, they are eager to engage in it, and thus it con- 
stantly happens that the poorest and the least prosper- 
ous business is that which the law favors, by compelling 
the people to trade only in a narrow market. 

The loss, then, always falls on the buyer, and after a 
time the gain does not remain with the seller. Some 
one always loses, and in the end no person gains. Why, 
then, should such a system be undertaken at all, and why 
should it be carried on, when its effects are found out ? 

Of course I do not take into account such cases as 
those in which men, having influence in a Government, 
knowingly put a loss on others in order to get a gain 
themselves. Such things have happened, and will hap- 
pen again, as long as strong men are dishonest, and other 
men are weak or ignorant. Except for the tact that 
such acts have the form of law on their side, they are 



102 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



just as much robbery as though a man picked one's 
pocket in the street, or stole one's money from one's 
house. 

But these laws or customs are defended on the 
ground that it is desirable to have all kinds of industry 
planted in a country. Xow if the industry is necessary 
to the defence of a country, there is great force in this 
reasoning. But then, we may depend on it that, unless 
the Government is very much to blame, they will be un- 
dertaken. If they are not, it is just as absurd for the 
law to order the work of the nation, as it is for it to or- 
der the work of a particular person, or as it would be 
for any person to try to do every thing for himself — grow 
his own food, make his own clothes, build his own house, 
and fashion his own tools — because he does not like to 
depend on others for the better and cheaper supply of 
these articles. In short, it is to prefer savage to civil- 
ized life. 

An industry which will pay on its own merits always 
springs up in a country as soon as the advantage of fol- 
lowing it is found out. and this is quite soon enough. 
Further, any country has a great advantage over every 
other country in two ways. It can supply the same 
goods without the cost of carriage. The home laborer 
knows better than the foreigner does how much of the 
article, and what quality of the article, is wanted. Xow 
to take to the industry before it can be supplied cheaper 
and better at home than it can be from abroad, is to 
waste one's industry. 

When, however, the tax is laid on, and the industry 
has been forced to grow, just as tropical plants may be 
made to grow in an English hothouse, it may be the case 
that an alteration in the law will do mischief to those 



RESTRAINTS OX BUYING AND SELLING-. ]Q3 



who have been induced to trust to the law. It is a very 
hard thing to get rid of a law which creates such inter- 
ests as would not naturally exist. It is like stripping 
off the roof of a hothouse, and leaving the plants within 
it to struggle, if they can, against a climate to which 
they are unsuited. Fortunately, indeed, man is more 
able to accommodate himself to hardship than a hothouse 
plant is to frost ; and moreover, no one industry is so 
wholly unlike others as to render it impossible for the 
workman to betake himself to another calling when the 
assistance the law gave his old labor is withdrawn. 

Two great countries have latterly passed through 
terrible wars. In the one, the nation was victorious — if, 
indeed, there can be said to be a victory in a civil war. 
In the other, it was vanquished. Both incurred great 
debts, which it is necessary to pay. The one. in order 
to find money, put heavy taxes on foreign goods, believ- 
ing that it would greatly assist home industry. The 
hope has been disappointed, for the home industry has 
been far from flourishing, and the foreign trade of the 
country, except in those articles which are not assisted, 
has been ruined. 

The other country has incurred a debt almost as vast 
as that of the United States. It has borrowed money in 
order to pay the debt, and has therefore to pay interest 
on its loans. Its statesmen, though they have the exam- 
ple of the American Republic before them, seem bent 
on following a disastrous example. The consequence of 
such a plan is as certain as that of any natural law can 
be. It will ruin foreign trade, will inflict great losses 
on the people, and in the end be a gain to no one. 



lesson" xxn. 



PUBLIC CHAKITIES. 

There is yet another kind of industry to which 
society or the State grants assistance, or to which it al- 
lows the grant of assistance on the part of private bene- 
factors. I have already told you of the aid which the 
State gives directly to those who are able to do a public 
service which is of great value, but which is not saleable. 
I am now about to tell you of that aid which the State 
allows other people to give, under the name of endoAV- 
ments or public charities. These endowments are por- 
tions of property, the income of which is devoted for- 
ever to certain public purposes. 

Now there are two objections which can always be 
made to such gifts, One is, that it is not expedient to 
allow any kind of property to be taken always out of 
the market, particularly if such property is one which is 
by nature limited in quantity, such as land. There al- 
ways should be strong proof shown that the end of such 
permission is very good, before any person is allowed, 
however excellent his motives may be, to bind all men 
afterwards not to bring a particular quantity of property 
into the market. Any interference with selling or buy- 
ing needs a defence. But if a charity is to be perpetual, 
it is necessary to grant this restraint over some kinds of 
property. 



PUBLIC CHARITIES. 



105 



Next, the gift of these charities, in ease they are 
bestowed on those who earn money by teaching, or get 
money for learning that which they will turn to profit- 
able account afterwards, always lowers the earnings of 
others who do not share in the charity. The same fact 
holds good in the case of ordinary wages, if any public 
charity gives aid to ordinary laborers. 

The reason is the following : The payment of labor 
depends generally on the cost of rendering the laborer 
fit for his employment, and on the number of persons 
who seek for the employment. Now if some aid is 
given to a particular employment, the advantage of fol- 
lowing it is greater than it is in others, and more per- 
sons press into it. If, moreover, the endowment is of 
such a character as to contain such prizes as give a show 
of chance or luck to it, the employment to which it is 
tied is always more attractive than one the rewards of 
which are merely uniform or every-day. 

Now just this sort of result happens in the case of 
those endowments which are given in aid of teachers. 
Those who get them are esteemed fortunate, however 
deserving they may be. Hence there are many persons 
willing to undertake the calling of a teacher. Still the 
income of the charity is to be reckoned up with all the 
wages which teachers earn. But the recompense is very 
unequally divided. Some have their earnings increased 
by the aid of the charity; but others have their earnings 
diminished — that is, do not get so much as they would 
have got had there been no charity at all. If no person 
got any thing from the charity, the earnings of all who 
are not assisted would rise, and the earnings of all would 
be equal in the case of all who have the same power and 
skill. 

5* 



106 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



So it is with charities given in aid of other wages. 
What a man earns must be sufficient to maintain him in 
health, to enable him to bring up children, to provide 
against the risk of sickness, and the certainty of old age. 
If the law informs him that in case he is unable to do 
so, it will maintain his children, will keep and cure him 
when sick, and provide him a home in old age. his 
wages will fall, even though he never takes advantage 
of the offer. From one point of view, poor-rates are 
really paid by those laborers who come within the class 
to whom poor-law relief is a help, because their wages 
are lowered by the pledge of assistance. 

If again, children are educated at the cost of a charity, 
the other rule which I have so often laid down comes 
into operation. The cost of rearing and teaching labor 
is lowered, and with it the wages are lowered. It is 
true that the person who lias gained the benefit of the 
charity gets far more than he would get, if no persons 
but such as are reared by the charity entered into the 
employment. But those who are reared at private cost 
got less than they would if the whole of those who enter 
the employment were reared at private cost. You will, 
of course, remember that when I am speaking in this 
manner, I am thinking of such knowledge or skill as 
commonly gets employment in consideration of its use- 
fulness. 

If, therefore, the consequence of a charity is that it 
interferes to some extent with the market of property, 
if it tends to lower wages, and is certain to make the 
payment of those who are not assisted lower than would 
have been the case had no assistance been given to any 
one, what good are these charities at all ? 

There was, no doubt, a time in which the value of 



PUBLIC CHARITIES. 



107 



education and learning was scarcely admitted at alL 
Had they been left to those who could afford to pursue 
them for their own sake, they would, perhaps, have 
never been cultivated at all, or probably would have 
been cultivated very rarely. In those days, an endow- 
ment in aid of learning was a real public good; it 
afforded leisure and the means of life to those who 
busied themselves with something which was very useful, 
but for which there was no market. Whatever may be 
said for these charities now, there was a time in which 
they had a great value. 

But at all times there are special branches of learning 
which have a great value, and yet are not marketable. 
The endowment which is given to such kinds of learning 
is now doing that which, in old days, these charities did 
for every kind of learning. You can see what the 
benefit to society would be if a man could discover some 
new force or process which would greatly saw* human 
labor. If it were possible to find a man who could give 
labor to such a discovery, it would be money well laid 
out to give him the leisure for the purpose. 

Much more can be said for those endowments which 
are given in aid of those who are taught. It is more 
easy to show how riches can be and are gathered, than 
to show how they can be fairly divided or distributed. 
Xow it very often happens that young people have 
great gifts of natural power, great force of character, 
and great willingness to learn. Poverty, however, and 
the lack of means by which they can be trained till such 
time as their powers can be made mature, are great 
hindrances to the progress of those whom everybody 
would wish to see prospering, 

Now these charities are or could be made a very 



108 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



powerful means for selecting and training such young 
people. A good system of education, and a wise man- 
agement of these charities, would make the road easy 
to many a diligent child ; nor will a system of educa- 
tion be perfect till such a scheme is worked out. Men 
of science do not grudge the spending of money on 
searching into all forms of Nature. But no discovery 
is more pleasing than that of good gifts of ability and 
character in children, and no money is better laid out 
than in forwarding such deserving persons. 



i 



lesson xm. 

THE WOKK OF GOVEKBTME2STT. 

By this time, I suppose, my readers will have found 
out that it is an error to imagine that work can be got 
without paying for it. There are. no doubt, some great 
services which are done to mankind, but for which no 
wages are ever paid. There are some persons, again, 
who devote themselves to works of charity and well- 
doing, who neither expect reward nor would accept it 
if it were offered them ; and there are, moreover, many 
ways in which persons may be paid for their services, 
apart from the common mode in which men are re- 
warded for work. But the rule holds good, that in some 
way or another most of those who work earn wages. 

Xow some of the most important work which can be 
done is performed by the Government of a country. It 
undertakes the defence of the whole people, either by 
police and courts of justice against those who break the 
peace or commit frauds at home, or by an army and navy 
against the passion of conquest in which States are 
sometimes apt to indulge. It controls education, gives 
relief to the destitute, and sits in judgment upon cases 
where people are likely to have a mistaken view of their 
own interests. Whether it always does what is best is 
a question ; but it always does that which those who 
have the greatest power and influence think is best. 



110 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



Again, it sometimes undertakes the management of 
a kind of work itself Tims it always regulates the 
coins of the country, and frequently takes upon itself 
the business of issuing those pieces of paper which, as I 
mentioned in a former lesson, can. under certain cir- 
cumstances and under certain rules, be made to act as 
money. So, again, in every civilized country, the Gov- 
ernment undertakes the collection and distribution of 
letters. In many countries it does the same thing by 
the conveyance of persons and goods, for it takes rail- 
ways in hand. Sometimes, as in England, it establishes 
banks for the poor. At times it lends money to per- 
sons who wish to improve property, or even to acquire 
property. 

Xow it is very easy to see why a Government under- 
takes some of these duties. We have already found 
out that human labor is always best bestowed when per- 
sons occupy themselves with some one business, and that 
to try a dozen things, unless under necessity, is to do 
the whole dozen ill. If, therefore, it would be a waste 
and an inconvenience for a man to undertake the defence 
of his own home, property, and person against domestic 
and foreign enemies, it is expedient to commit this office 
to some one else. But to whom could it be committed 
except to a Government which has the power to compel 
the strictest discipline, and if i: be so disposed, can do 
the work in the best and the cheapest manner ? 

In short, a whole society may be compared to a vast 
factory, every one of the workmen in which is occupied 
in some industry for the general good. But it is neces- 
sary that over the whole of this huge partnership some 
management should be established, the officers of which 
should see that each man is allowed to do his work with 



THE WORK OF GOVERNMENT. 



Ill 



the least possible hindrance and loss, that the whole of 
those who exercise their industry, should do so with the 
greatest possible safety; and that each person should feel 
that right will be done him, in case he thinks that wrong 
has been put upon him. The managers of this great 
partnership engage to maintain peace and order in the 
interests of all, and to check and control all whose con- 
duct would throw the safe and constant working of the 
partnership out of gear. 

It is not easy to say when a Goyernment should take 
upon itself to hire laborers in order to perform indus- 
tries which private persons or private partnerships can 
undertake. Three causes, however, may induce this 
kind of action. A Government may hire labor, and 
manufacture or perform a public service, either because 
it cannot trust ordinary traders ; or because the work 
can be done at a cheaper rate by Government than it can 
by private enterprise; or because the necessary spirit of 
enterprise is wanting. 

Unluckily, honesty bears a price. People are obliged 
to pay for that which only exists in limited quantity, and 
which it is at the same time very necessary to get. Xow 
the habits of some persons, owing to the negligence of 
law, are so dishonest, that it is difficult to say whether 
you can trust their word at all when they pretend to sell 
genuine goods. Frauds and adulterations are part of 
the stock-in-trade of some men. But it is not difficult 
to see that a Government may be put to serious incon- 
venience, and a nation to great danger by the roguery 
of such tradesmen. Suppose this nation were forced to 
go to war, and found that the powder which it had 
bought was bad, because the manufacturer had cheated 
the nation, or that the preserved meat was unwholesome, 



112 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



or the bread made of bad flour, the country might be 
brought to the verge of ruin. Cases of this kind have 
often happened, and in view of this danger, it may be, 
and it has often been, necessary for the Government to 
do this kind of work for itself. 

In the second place, a Government dealing with a 
public service on the largest possible scale, may do the 
work more cheaply and effectually than any private com- 
pany can. A trade partnership could undertake the 
business of the Post Office, but it is very doubtful 
whether it would distribute letters with such cheapness, 
accuracy, and dispatch, as the Government does. 

In the third place, the spirit of enterprise *hiay be 
weak in a society. The subscription of private capital 
has constructed English and American railways: but in 
every other country such works have been undertaken 
by Government, either in whole or in part. And even 
in the United States, the great Pacific Railroad, com- 
pleting the line across the Continent, was largely assist- 
ed by the Government. So Government has made and 
maintained roads, erected public buildings, undertaken 
irrigation on a large scale, reclaimed waste land. Among 
an active and enterprising people such work would be 
superfluous or even mischievous, but when an important 
object has to be attained, it is not always wise for the 
State to wait till private persons take it in hand. 



LESSON XXIV. 



TAXES. 

Ie a Government does a service, it must, like every- 
one else, be paid for doing it. It may possess an estate, 
the rents of which may be sufficient for meeting the 
charges to which it is put for j^erforming the service 
which it undertakes. Sometimes this happens to a lim- 
ited extent in this country. There are many ancient 
towns which possess large estates, the value of which 
has been greatly increased by the demand for building 
sites. But no general Government has ever had an es- 
tate sufficiently large to meet the expenses which are 
thought necessary for carrying on the various duties 
which a Government fulfils. 

Recourse must therefore be had to some other 
source of income. The several persons who live in a 
community are called upon to contribute something out 
of their means towards the cost of a service which is a 
benefit to everybody : in other words, they j)ay taxes. 

You will see at once why some taxes are put upon 
the inhabitants of certain places, and not on the whole 
nation. For example : suppose the land in any district 
of New Jersey were being washed away by the sea. as 
it is occasionally on the coast, and that by some outlay 



114 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



the waste of land might be stopped. In this case the 
j>eople who live in Chicago should not be called on to 
pay towards saving the property of the people who pos- 
sess land in those maritime counties : the necessary ex- 
penses should be met by a local rate. 

Again, it is no doubt desirable in the minds of all 
who have any idea of what is the public good, that pau- 
perism should be checked, and that crime should be de- 
tected and punished. To a certain extent both these so- 
cial evils affect everybody : but they ought to affect the 
place where they occur most of all — pauperism almost en- 
tirely, crime to a great extent. It is the wise and just 
rule of our law that such a system should be adopted. 
The State aids the cost of pauperism a little, the cost of 
crime a great deal. The locality pays the greater part 
of the charges incurred for the first, and a considerable 
amount of the cost incurred for the second. 

But, on the other hand, if the tax is devoted to pur- 
poses which benefit everybody, the tax should be col- 
lected from everybody, in so far as each person can pay 
it. The public defence is a matter of universal benefit. 
The invasion of an enemy may destroy the property of 
the wealthy, it is sure to stop the industry of the poor, 
who suffer even more than the rich by the miseries of 
war. Let us suppose, again, that part of the work of 
Government consists in rewarding those who have done 
some special benefit to their fellow-countrymen. Here 
also the whole nation should pay for that by which the 
whole nation is benefited. 

There is then, apart from another consideration, which 
I shall refer to presently, a great propriety in distinguish- 
ing between taxes which are paid by the inhabitants of 
particular regions, and which are called local, and taxes 



TAXES. 



115 



which are paid by the whole community, because they 
are employed for purposes which are called imperial, or 
national. The distinction is founded on the fact, that 
people pay taxes in order to obtain some real or sup- 
posed benefit. 

The other consideration, which could not, except for 
the last-named reason, be of very great weight, but 
which, taken with that reason, is of great value, is that 
the local collection and expenditure of taxes promotes 
saving and educates people to carry on the government 
under which they live, and to understand its working. 
If all the taxes needed for public purposes in the United 
States were paid into one vast treasury, and spent by 
some board or boards situated in Washington, there 
would certainly be great waste, and everybody but those 
who managed matters in these boards would be un- 
trained in public business. Xow no country has ever 
yet succeeded in obtaining real freedom where there has 
been no local Government, but where every thing has 
been done by the central Government. 

The benefit of protection is general, and the cost 
ought as far as possible to be met by payments from all. 
At first sight it would seem as though women and chil- 
dren were more protected than strong men are. In a 
sense, perhaps, they are. But. a little inquiry will show 
that everybody is so much protected by a good and 
wise Government, that the difference between the help 
given to one and to another is not worth reckoning. 
The effect of insecurity is to take away strength from 
all industry, enjoyment from all property. If society 
were at the mercy of violence, the strongest man would 
be only a little more helpful than a child. 

Of course, it is the business of a Government to 



116 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



make the cost as light as possible. Every tax that a 
person pays is so much taken away from his power of 
enjoyment, and every man has a natural right to enjoy 
the fruits of his labor. At any rate, it is clear that if 
the right of such an enjoyment were denied him, he 
would be in the condition of a slave, and as we have al- 
ready seen, a slave has only the lowest motives for ex- 
ertion, and no motives for improvement. 

All cost is so much taken away from enjoyment. It 
cost far more labor to our forefathers to get the neces- 
saries and comforts of life than it costs us, and as a con- 
sequence their enjoyments were fewer. It is impossible 
for labor to be carried on without cost, but the inge- 
nuity of man is always directed towards making the 
cost as light as can be. So it is impossible for Govern- 
ment to be carried on without taxes, but it is the duty 
of Government to make the taxes as few as possible, 
and such as distress the people who pay them, as little 
as possible. 

I have compared society to a great partnership in 
which the government are the managers. You will see 
from what I have already said in this lesson, that the 
comparison is made more clear by the way in which taxes 
are collected, and by the principle which ought to guide 
those who put taxes on the people. To take a tax for 
some purpose which does not benefit all who are in the 
partnership, would be a wrong; to lay more taxes on 
the people than are sufficient to manage the great part- 
nership, would be a waste — would be to pay one kind of 
labor more than its due. But it is plainly out of the 
question to imagine that the management could be car- 
ried on without cost or expense. All good service 
must be paid for, and wise government is the best of 
service. 



LESSON XXV. 



WHAT DO TAXES COME PROM? 

Everybody who gets the aid of Government should 
bear a portion of its expenses. But it is plain that those 
who have nothing cannot pay. A person who is main- 
tained at the public charge, without being able to do any- 
work in return for his maintenance, can pay nothing 
except in so far as those who maintain him pay taxes on 
his behalf. So those who can earn nothing, but are 
maintained from private sources, pay to the needs of the 
State only through their relatives and friends. 

Xow this very plain fact leads us to a very important 
rule. The only source from which a person can pay a 
tax, is from that portion of his earnings which is over 
and above the cost of his own subsistence, and the cost 
of those whom he must maintain by his labor. In our 
country it is seldom the case that the earnings of people 
leave them nothing whatever to pay in taxes. Some 
people allow themselves to pay a great deal more than 
they ought to pay, if they considered the true needs of 
themselves and their children. But it is rarely the case 
that a man's income is wholly consumed in bare neces- 
saries, and that he has nothing left for enjoyment. Such 
men, then, can and do pay taxes ; it may be very little, 
but they generally pay something. 



118 SOCIAL ECONOMY. 

Some taxes are paid of a man's own free will — 
he can avoid paving them if he chooses. Xo man need 
drink beer, wine, or spirits, or smoke tobacco against 
his will; and it is certain that he can contrive to live 
without the use of any of these. In the same way. tea 
and coffee are not absolute necessaries of life, though 
they have become such very familiar comforts that they 
may be almost called necessaries. Sugar, on the other 
hand, is a necessary of life ; it is a kind of food, and a 
very important kind of food too. Xow these articles 
are nearly the only objects on the use of which the 
Government of this country lays any taxes. 

Some taxes, however, are paid whether a man wills 
or not. Most local taxes, poor-rates, house-tax. and the 
like are of this kind. So is a tax on a man's earnings, 
or his property, taken from the annual income of the 
former, or on the value of the latter. Such also are taxes 
levied on business, as on buying and selling. It is im- 
possible to carry on the affairs of life without buying 
and selling. 

Generally, however, small houses, low earnings, and 
little business dealings are not taxed. Perhaps the rea- 
son is that it would cost too much to collect them ; per- 
haps it is seen that they would tend to cripple business ; 
l>erhaps it is allowed that there is a class of persons who 
should not be made liable to pay taxes which they can- 
not avoid, because they have little more than enough to 
live on. 

It will be clear, then, that if all taxes were put upon 
the earnings of people, and none on their spendings. the 
tax would be much heavier in the case of a man who 
has a family of children to keep, than it would be on 
one who has none; and would be much heavier also in 



WHAT DO TAXES COME FROM? 



119 



the case of a man who cannot earn his income without 
great outgoings, than in that of a man whose income 
comes to him without any outlay whatever. A man 
who can choose his own expenses, and who is constrained 
to meet certain regular demands on him, may keep 
within compass. But if his expenses are fixed by some 
other will than his own, as would be the case if the 
taxes he pays were laid on his earnings and not on his 
sp endings, it may very well happen that the tax he pays 
may press severely on his means. 

Again, it will be clear that the tax which is paid by 
a man of small earnings, is felt to be harder than a far 
larger tax paid by a man of large earnings or large in- 
come, if it be the case that the poorer man is unable to 
avoid the tax. The sacrifice which poverty makes is far 
greater than that which wealth makes, just as the charity 
of the poor is greater self 1 denial than the gifts of the 
rich. A tax of fifty cents a week out of five dollars 
earnings, is a much more serious affair than taxes of five 
dollars a week out of an income of five thousand dollars 
a year. And when the wealth of the taxpayer is still 
greater, the sacrifice is still less. 

Men whose incomes are very little may, however 
pay a very large part of the taxes of a country; foi 
though the earnings of each may be small, they become 
when added up a vast sum. The same rule holds good 
in their spendings. It has been reckoned that half the 
taxes of England are paid by people whose earnings are 
under ten dollars a week. They would, no doubt, be 
vastly better off if they saved a portion of that which 
they spend; but the amount which they do spend in tax- 
paying articles of their own free choice, is so great, that 
if it were saved, it would keep half the work of the 



120 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



country going on. So vast is this amount, that it is hard 
to say what would be done, if the money received by 
the Government from this quarter were to cease pour- 
ing in. But it is certain that more than half the misery, 
poverty and crime which disgrace this country — and a 
good many other countries too — would be arrested, if 
people forbore to spend on those articles from which 
the Government gets so much by taxation. 

Sometimes a country does not take all that it needs 
by taxes, but borrows money, and pays interest on that 
which it has borrowed. The reason why this is done — 
if the true reason is given — is that when a time of great 
difficulty arises, it would be next to impossible to get 
what is needed by ordinary taxation. It would be bet- 
ter to do so, but as long as the art of putting taxes on 
is in so imperfect a state, a great increase in the expenses 
of the Government would press with the greatest sever- 
ity on the poorer classes — that is, on those whose earn- 
ings very little exceed their expenses. 

Most countries have borrowed great sums of money, 
and require a great income in annual taxes to pay the 
charge for these loans. These sums have not always 
been borrowed for the wisest purposes. Perhaps as 
time goes on, and nations get to be wiser, and rulers get 
wiser also, the disposition to enter upon projects which 
require wasteful borrowing will be a great deal checked. 
It is to be hoped that it will be ; for there is no doubt 
that in the long run, a country which has no debts, and 
therefore comparatively slight taxes, will win in the race 
against others which have incurred debts, and have 
therefore put on heavy taxes. 



LESSON XXVI. 



THE PUNISHMENT OF CRIME. 

Why do men punish crime ? TVhy are some offences 
chastised by law. while others which are often very mis- 
chievous in their consequences, are either visited by light 
punishments, or not punished at all ? 

A crime is an offence against one individual or more, 
or against all individuals — i.e., against the community at 
large. To the former class belong acts of violence or 
fraud committed on any person or persons ; to the latter, 
acts which offend against society itself Xow there is a 
constant tendency to treat offences against persons as 
being offences against society, and to neglect to com- 
pensate the person who has undergone harm and loss, in 
the anxiety to chastise an offence which may be said to 
injure all men who live in the same community. Nay, 
the usages of modern law go further still ; and Govern- 
ments engage by treaty to give up persons who have 
committed crimes in their own country, and have tied to 
a foreign country in order to escape detection and pun- 
ishment. 

In early times the law took notice only of the in- 
jured person, and made it its business to assist or re- 
compense him against a wrong-doer. In the oldest sys- 
tems of European law, wrongs done to persons were 
fi 



122 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



looked on as debts incurred, and when the injury was 
provedj the judge directed the wrong-doer to pay a sum 
of money to the wronged person; or in case he could 
not pay. adjudged him to be the slave of such a person. 
Even murder was punished with a heavy fine only. And 
to carry this notion out most fully, the quantity of the 
fine varied with the rank of the person against whom the 
crime was committed. 

In course of time, however, another opinion began 
to prevail. It was seen that an offence, committed mali- 
ciously, was not only a wrong on the person injured, but 
a wrong to society itself. So important is the mainte- 
nance of order, and so serious are the consequences of 
disorder, that it was plainly the duty of Government to 
save society from these outrages. Thus if a man com- 
mits a forgery, though this is really an attempt to cheat 
some individual only, it was felt that this offence was so 
mischievous to credit and good faith — which are the bonds 
of society — that the punishment of the offence mi be 
referred to Government only. Again, no grosser wrong 
can be conceived than wilful murder. But for many a 
year the law has ceased to trouble itself with the injury 
done to the family and friends of the murdered person, 
in its anxiety to avenge the wrong done to the order and 
security of society. 

As nations become more civilized, this tendency to 
look on offences from a social, rather than from a per- 
sonal point of view, grows stronger, and offences are 
constantly treated as crimes rather than as wrongs. Of 
course there are and always will be a number of cases 
in which the injury done to the individual is the only 
thing to be considered, and the only thing to be righted. 
Thus the carelessness which makes men sutler by a rail- 



THE PUNISHMENT OF CRIME. 



123 



way accident, is treated as a wrong which requires com- 
pensation. A theft of property is treated as a wrong 
against society; but a damage done to property is gen- 
erally looked on solely as an injury to the person whose 
property has been diminished in value. 

Some offences may be treated either as wrongs or 
crimes. If a man libels another — that is. says something 
of him which, being false and malicious, will injure him 
in his character or his calling — the person who is wronged 
may either try to get what are called damages for the in- 
jury, or may treat the person as a criminal, and try to 
get him punished. Violence done to a man's body may 
be chastised similarly in either way. The law has not 
yet declared, in these cases, that the mischief done to 
society is greater than that done to the person who has 
been the subject of the violence. 

So much for the person injure:!. The offender, as 
soon as it has been decided that the deed is to be treated. 
as a crime against society, is always visited with a heav- 
ier penalty than his offence could have possibly brought 
him gain. The reason is clear. It is the business of 
law, not only to right wrongs, but to frighten offenders. 
Xow the wrong is not merely loss of property, even 
when the individual injured is alone considered. If a 
man robs his fellow-man of five dollars, it will not be a 
sufficient penalty to make him pay back the five dollars, 
for this is not the extent of the injury. He has abused 
trust, or put another in fear, or to pain. Besides, to mere- 
ly give back the precise amount of the loss, would be to 
treat the wrong-doer as though he were only a debtor. 
Xow an involuntary creditor — one who has been made a 
creditor against his will — may fairly claim more recom- 



124 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



pense than one who entered into an engagement with 
another of his free choice. 

But, as we have seen, he has not only put the injured 
person to a loss, but all society. He has rendered ne- 
cessary the maintenance of a police, of courts of justice, 
and prisons. Were there not such persons as he, all 
these costly arrangements need not be made. His con- 
duct is not only a loss to society, but is a disgrace. It 
is to be regretted that no way has been found out by 
which those who commit crimes on the greatest scale — 
those who sacrifice peojDle to warlike ambition — can be 
punished according to their deserts. Unfortunately, 
however, these great offences go unpunished. 

Under these circumstances, then, those offenders 
whom the law does reach, are liable to pay what I may 
call a multiplied or a double penalty. The penalty is 
multiplied, because the offence is not to be reckoned only 
by the direct loss which the wrong lias caused to the in- 
jured person. It is doubled, because not only the man 
who is the object of the offence is to be considered, but 
the security of society has to be taken into account too, 
and the costs to which society is put for the prosecution, 
correction, and punishment of crime. 

But there is even another reason why society should 
seek to deter offenders. When a man is wronged by no 
fault of his own, he is not protected as he should be by 
that Government which guarantees his protection, and for 
whose guarantee he pays his part towards the expenses 
of state. To be obliged to defend a right, is to assert 
that wrong has been done. If it be proved that wrong 
has been done, it is the duty of the State to make the 
wrong good, if possible, or least to prevent its occurring 
again. From these motives, it sometimes happens that 



THE PUNISHMENT OF CRIME. 



125 



wLen certain crimes are committed, the law not only 
strives to seek out and punish the guilty persons, but 
puts a fine on the region where the crime was committed, 
in order that the injured person may be righted, and the 
criminal be discovered. 



LESSON XXVII. 



THE PRINCIPLE OE PUXISHMEXT. 

As regards the offender, then, the first motive 
which influences the law in chastising him, is vengeance 
and security. To avenge a wrong is a natural impulse : 
to commit the duty of exercising this vengeance to the 
law. is to put it into the hands of a judge who can give 
sentence without passion, in accordance with a rule 
which has been laid down before the offence was com 
mitted. Xowadays. no one thinks of passing a law in 
order to punish an offence committed before the law 
existed. And it is moreover clear that the law intends 
by its punishments to afford security. It may, indeed, 
err in its anxiety to obtain this security, and its punish- 
ments may have, and have had. exactly the opposite 
result that was intended, for excessive severity defeats 
its own purpose. 

But it has been held that the duty of the law is of a 
higher kind, and that along with the punishment, it 
ought to try to reform the criminal. Xow there is no 
doubt that if it can do this, it may sometimes effect a 
great saving. Of all wasteful persons, there is none 
more wasteful than one who is constantly leading a life 
of crime. He is most wasteful if he is not detected and 
punished; but he is only a little less wasteful if he is. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF PUNISHMENT. 



127 



Still there are limits to the benevolence which seeks to 
reform bad people at the exj^ense of the State — that is, 
of those who pay taxes. 

Most people, perhaps nearly all people, are agreed 
that we should try to reform young criminals. There 
are two reasons for this. In the first place, it may be 
fairly said that when very young people take to bad 
ways, it is not quite their own fault that they do so. In 
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they have had care- 
less or bad parents. Xow it is not just to punish a child 
for his parents' fault. It used to be thought just to do 
so, in barbarous times, but we have arrived at exactly 
opposite views on the subject in our days, and have 
even, perhaps, gone a little beyond what might be de- 
manded, in order to avoid the older and barbarous rule. 
In the next place, there is sure to be a terrible loss in- 
curred when a habit of crime begins in childhood. 

It is more doubtful whether the same kind of care 
should be shown in the case of older culprits, especially 
when they happen to be persons who, having had a 
chance given them, have repeatedly offended. It seems 
hard, when there is a great amount of undeserved suffer- 
ing in the world, that the resources of society should be 
turned to the benefit of those who have brought upon 
themselves whatever inconvenience they suffer. If any- 
body is to be helped, it surely seems that help is due to 
the deserving rather than to the undeserving. 

There is yet another reason for the prevention and 
correction of offences. It is a better motive than that 
of vengeance, and even than that of affording security 
to good order. The crimes of bad men are a loss to 
society. But they are also a disgrace to it. Now there 
is nothing done by man which cannot be prevented by 



128 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



man. if it be only possible to find out the way in which 
the prevention may take effect. Probably there are 
many persons who never commit an offence against law 
in their whole lives, but who owe their freedom from 
bad actions to the fact that they are checked by a healthy 
fear of losing their character or reputation. Xow it may 
be that there is not much hope for those whose charac- 
ter is lost already, and it may be the fact that very few 
of those who take to dishonest courses ever mend their 
ways. But it would be a great thing done if the evil 
were bounded by the present generation. 

The good or ill conduct of a man is a matter of great 
interest to their fellow-men. It is a great mistake for 
anybody to think that he should be merely busied with 
his own conduct, and that he need be under no concern 
for that of others. It is true that he may not discover 
the exact amount of social mischief which crime and 
vice cause, but he may be certain that mischief is caused, 
and that his business is to check it. 

It is easy to see the fact on a small scale in the man- 
agement of a school. Perhaps order, obedience to law- 
ful commands, regularity, good manners, mutual kindli- 
ness, care not to wantonly hurt each others feelings, 
truthfulness, and similar acts of good conduct, are quite 
as important matters of education as the school learn- 
ing which a boy picks up from his master and in his 
class. Every boy in school can understand the mischief 
which idle, disorderly, rude, and ill-mannered boys do bo 
its discipline and success. Xow no less mischief is done 
to society at large by these and similar vices, than is 
done to a school. They are not the less real, because 
they are not seen so plainly. 

And this leads me to the last question which I raised 



THE PRINCIPLE OF PUNISHMENT. 129 



when I referred to the fact that many serious offences 
are visited with light penalties, or are not punished at 
all. 

If a man tells a lie in a court of justice, when giving 
evidence, he commits an offence which is severely pun- 
ished. If he tells a lie when he is selling something in 
his shop — as, for example, if he says that a particular ar- 
ticle is genuine, when it is really adulterated, or that he 
gives a certain measure of any thing when the quantity 
is much below the measure — he is not punished at all, or 
punished very lightly. But he may do as much mischief 
to society by the trade lie as he does by false swearing. 

So, again, if a man attacks another savagely in the 
street, or starves his children in order to gratify a base 
liking for drink, he very often gets off easily, or is not 
corrected at ail ; whereas, if he caused a riot, in which 
far less real mischief is done than in the other cases, he 
is treated — and justly treated — with great severity. 

Now there is no doubt that the reason why this neg- 
ligence occurs is frequently due to the fact, that the law 
does not take notice of many offences which it could and 
should chastise. But it is still more due to the fact, that 
it is desirable to limit the operation of law as much as is 
possible, due regard being had to the security and order 
of society, and to trust as much as possible to the judg- 
ment of what may be called public conscience or pub- 
lic opinion. If the disgrace which should attach to those 
who commit offences against what society knows to be 
right, were strong enough to deter all from evil prac- 
tices, there would be no need for law or justice. As it 
is, law trusts much to this influence, and in time may 
perhaps trust more. 
6* 



LESSON XXVHL 



RESTRAINTS OX FREEDOM. 

If a man has any right, it is that of a free control 
over his own words, acts, and projDerty. All that has 
been done for mankind, either in assisting it in getting 
its work done more easily, or in making life more safe 
and happy, has been done by the activity of free minds. 
Slavery makes no progress, as I have said before. Nor 
has there ever been any thing done for the moral good 
of man, except by those who, of their own free will, 
have considered their neighbors' good in the first place, 
and have thought very little of their own profit or ad- 
vantage. They who have made men wiser and better 
have always made great sacrifices in order to do so : for 
there is no exercise of one's own will or freedom, which 
is more marked than that of the man w T ho chooses what 
is right for its own sake, and cares nothing for the con- 
sequences. 

But it cannot be denied that freedom is of necessity 
limited in a variety of ways. In the first place, no per- 
son can claim that his freedom should extend to allow- 
ing him to interfere with the freedom of others. There 
ought not to be — and properly speaking there cannot be 
- — any right in another man's wrong. If it can be shown 
that what a man says is his, cannot be his without caus- 



RESTRAINTS ON FREEDOM. 



131 



Ing loss or misery to his neighbor, it should not be his 
for a moment after such a loss or misery is proved to 
come from the possession of a miscalled right. One of 
the most manifest of rights is that of property in that 
which is the result of one's own labor, or which has been 
purchased by one's own labor. But if there were a 
man in a besieged city, or to take a better instance still, 
on a desert island, who possessed by right of property 
ail the food in the city, or all the food which had been 
saved from the wreck of the ship, and he would not al- 
low any of them who were with him to share in any of 
that which is his, it is plain that in neither case would his 
companions allow him to exercise his full rights of prop- 
erty. In other words, they would not permit him to 
maintain a right, the full exercise of which would cause 
the direst misery to his neighbors. 

What is true in the case I have quoted, holds good 
in other cases. Strict right is very often grievous wrong, 
and cannot be endured. This may be shoAvn in many 
ways. It would seem to be a right that a man should 
be able to carry on what industry he pleases on his own 
premises. But if he carries on some trade which injures 
the health or destroys the comfort of others, his rights 
will be restrained. If a man possessing a vast estate 
were to pull down every house on it, forbid its cultiva- 
tion, and seek to make it a desert, his claim to do what 
he wills with his own should be, and probably would be, 
resisted, even if he were not proved to be inad. 

It is true that there is generally little necessity for 
checking the undue use of such a right as that which has 
been referred to just now, for no one, we should think, 
but a madman, would destroy his own property. But 
acts may be done on a small scale which society would 



132 



SOCIAL. ECONOMY. 



not permit on a large scale. It is a difficulty to decide 
when they are done on so large a scale as to call for the 
interference of law. When they are so done, the Legis- 
lature sometimes deals with the difficulty. 

Again, the rights of a parent over a child are neces- 
sary, in order that a home should be well governed. 
But the law will not allow a father to ill-use his children, 
to deny them the necessaries of life, and to refuse them 
proper education. The freedom or discretion of the 
parent may be granted, but this freedom must have its 
limits. The same rules apply to other relations — as of 
husband and wife, master and servant, teacher and 
pupil. 

The best state of society is that in which the greatest 
possible liberty is given consistently with no wrong 
being done to others. In so far as this result can be 
secured by law, the statesman makes it his business to 
decide where liberty can be allowed, and where order 
must be maintained. He is, as it were, a judge between 
those who claim a right, and those who assert thai the 
exercise of the right is a wrong. 

But there are a number of instances in which the 
liberty of the individual is in a manner restrained, 
though no harm could accrue to society at large if he 
used his liberty. Thus, for example, there are certain 
demands which fashion, or custom, or manners make upon 
every person. Most Americans wear the same fashion of 
clothes, adopt the same customs, and accept or obey 
certain rules of politeness or good manners. real 
harm would happen if some persons thought proper to 
wear their clothes inside out, or adopt a dress which 
would be quite different from what is usual, or followed 
out-of-the-way customs, or practised manners different 



RESTRAINTS ON FREEDOM. 



133 



from what most people think proper behavior. Nations 
vary much in these particulars, and what would be 
right conduct in some countries, would be considered 
very strange and, perhaps, improper in this. Why 
should such restraints be put on the freedom of people ? 

The fact is that the usages and customs of life are 
part of that training by which people get the most diffi- 
cult of all accomplishments — the habit of self-restraint 
or self-control. It does not follow that this habit is 
peculiar to civilized people only. There are savage or 
half-savage races who are most carefully polite and self- 
restrained. This is peculiarly the character of the Red 
Indian tribes of Xorth America, who are nevertheless 
so uncivilized, in the full sense of the word, that they 
seem to be incapable of adopting a settled life. 

That man or boy is not very likely to be worth much 
to the society in which he lives, who has no respect for 
the good opinion of others, or who is indifferent to their 
just censure. A proper sense of shame at misconduct 
or any breach of good manners, is the means by which 
men arrive at the best social gift they can obtain — a nice 
and careful sense of honor. The self-respect which 
every one ought to feel, and which is the foundation of 
true manliness in men and true grace in women, comes 
from the feeling that one has done nothing to forfeit the 
respect of those about one. But to get the respect of 
others, one must show respect to them — and give as well 
as take. Now, though this is giving up part of one's 
own will or liberty, it sacrifices a little in order to gain 
much more 



LESSON" XXIX. 



RESTRAINTS ON CALLINGS. 

There are certain callings which any man may enter 
on, if he is able to take them in hand, and can get his 
living by them. There are some which can be entered 
on only Avhen the law allows the man to follow the occu- 
pation. There are some which every man is allowed to 
follow, bat in the exercise of which the law puts a man 
under control. There are some in which the law only 
allows a limited number of persons to be engaged. 

Now at the present time, whatever may have hap- 
pened in time past, it is always supposed that any 
restraint put on those who have to choose the means by 
which to get their living, is put for the general good of 
the whole community, and that reason should be shown 
that this good is intended. In other words, freedom of 
occupation in the rule, restraint is the exception. But 
at different times in the history of all countries, the 
various kinds of restraint mentioned at the head of this 
lesson have applied to very different callings. Rulers 
have had very different views as to what is the public 
good. But some occupations have always been put 
under restraint, or the rule of a police. 

The great majority of callings can be followed at 
pleasure. Any man may become a tradesman in the 
ordinary meaning of the word, or a common laborer, 
or a farmer. There never was, and indeed never could 



RESTRAINTS OX CALLINGS. 



135 



be a time, whi n men were prevented from occupying 
and tilling lat d, for the very good reason, that the 
means by which everybody lives must be obtained by 
agriculture and similar callings. There have been times 
indeed when persons who were engaged in tilling the 
soil were forbidden to go into any other calling, partly 
that the land might be tilled, partly, I fear, in order that 
laborers might be plentiful, and therefore labor be cheap. 

But in old days a man could very seldom open a 
shop, at least in a town, whenever he pleased. In the 
old English towns, as in the towns of other countries, 
the right to keep a shop was granted only on application, 
generally after a payment, and after the person had been 
entered into the books of some trading company. This 
rule, for example, used to be universal in London. You 
may see many handsome buildings in the city of Lon- 
don, which are called the halls of certain companies. In 
those buildings, now generally devoted to feasts, the 
several members of these companies used to meet, and 
admit persons to the principal privilege which the com- 
pany possessed, which was that of being the only 
persons who were allowed to deal in the several articles 
from which the company took its name or title. 

This rule lias long passed away among Englishmen, 
and never was in force in the United States. Anybody 
may now set up any ordinary shop wherever he pleases, 
either in town or country, and no one can hinder him ; 
but the liberty of trade which the English and Ameri- 
can people possess is not granted in many other coun- 
tries. In certain German towns, for example, a journey- 
man is obliged to wait for years before he can get the 
license to open a shop, set up a manufacture, or follow a 
trade. 



136 



SOCIAL ECOXOMT. 



After he has got the license, he is often tied down by a 
host of regulations, which are found very inconvenient 
and oppressive. There can be no doubt that much of 
the activity and industry which belong to this country 
are due to the general freedom which people enjoy in 
the choice of their calling or occupation. 

There are some kinds of industry among ourselves 
which, although they are free to anybody to choose, 
cannot be entered on without some previous apprentice- 
ship. At present there is no law which forbids any 
man from undertaking any kind of manual labor, though 
in old times no person could follow any trade or art 
without having been apprenticed to it ; but this law has 
been disused or abandoned. There are, indeed, trades 
or callings in which some persons are always appren- 
ticed before they are able to follow them. The rule is 
not, as I have said, a law, but a custom of the trade, 
enforced by some by-law or regulation which the work- 
men in that trade have made for themselves. It may 
be doubted whether such a restraint is likely to last 
much longer. TThen the law does not speak, custom 
is pretty sure to give way to liberty. 

As you have learned already, the wages which peo- 
ple receive in any calling are regulated partly by the 
need which there is for the service which such persons 
can render, partly by the cost of making the workman 
fit for his calling, partly by the number of persons 
willing to be enrployed. "When there is a little need 
for the service, and the cost for supplying the service is 
small, and the number of workmen is great, wages will 
be low. When different circumstances arise, wages are 
high. Xow the desire to obtain what the workman 
makes lies in the mind of the man who needs his service, 



RESTRAINTS ON CALLINGS. 



137 



and the workman can, by himself, exercise no control or 
influence over such a desire or demand. 

He can, however, bring his influence to bear on the 
other two factors — as arithmeticians say — in the calcula- 
tion. He may make labor dear and scarce, by making 
the preparation of the laborer costly, or by limiting the 
number of people seeking enrployment. Xow an ap- 
prenticeship effects both these ends. It is possible that 
the apprentice may learn the art in which he is to be 
instructed in a quarter of the time during which his 
apprenticeship lasts. If the time be prolonged, the 
effect is that his power of earning wages on his own 
account is put off. But this is just the same as making 
his preparation more costly than it would naturally be. 

The same process makes the number of laborers 
fewer. In some of those callings where it is the custom 
that workmen should have been apprenticed, there is 
often another custom, that no master can take more 
than a limited number of apprentices. Here the quan- 
tity of labor is directly limited. But it is also limited 
whenever more time than is necessary is given towards 
making the Avorkman fit for his calling, since whatever 
makes some kinds of labor costly, makes some kinds of 
laborers scarce. 



LESSON XXX. 



L A W S F I X I X G PRICES. 

Il has often been thought to be good for the public 
at large that there should be a rule which might fix the 
number of persons engaged in. or, at least, restrain an 
excessive number of persons from entering into, any 
one calling. But the difficulty is to fix the number 
which should be employed or could be employed, and 
to decide on the callings which should be put under 
regulation. Even if the number could be settled, and 
the callings could be decided on, it is to be feared that a 
great many abuses would occur. It might be an advan- 
tage to enter on such an occupation, and they who would 
be appointed to manage the system, as well as those 
who might profit by it, might enter into some dishonest 
bargain. 

There is no way to avoid the risk of such dishonesty, 
except by fixing the price at which the service or work 
should be sold. But there are very few objects which 
can be treated in this manner. In those which are so 
treated, it is only possible to take a rough or general 
rule by which to fix the price. This rule may be made 
much more exact in some cases than it can be in others. 
But in every case, the person who is subjected to the 



LAWS FIXING PRICES. 



139 



rule must be liberally dealt with, that the price which is 
fixed may cover the risk of his business. 

In the days of our forefathers, it was the custom to 
fix the price of bread by law. One of the earliest laws 
among the English statutes is that which fixed the price 
of bread. Of course, no one could fix the price of corn, 
for the value of food depends on its plenty or scarcity, 
and plenty or scarcity — at least in those countries which 
cannot or will not buy in other countries when food is 
scarce at home — depends wholly on the seasons. Hence 
in England, which depended entirely on itself for all the 
supplies of food which its people needed, there were 
great variations in the price of bread. In cheap years 
it was excessively plentiful, in dear years it sometimes 
mounted three or even four times above the usual price. 
Xow we need hardly be told that if in our time a loaf, 
which usually in England costs sixpence, were to be 
worth two shillings, many people would starve. 

Our forefathers, of course, could find no means by 
which to prevent these sudden changes. They tried 
one or two plans, but they only made matters worse by 
their efforts. But they could — or thought they could — 
fix the price at which the baker's service should be paid. 
So they made a law which declared that the price of a 
certain weight of bread should always follow the price 
of a certain measure of wheat. In the same spirit, and 
with the same intention, they ruled that a certain measure 
of beer should follow the price of a certain measure 
of malt. The regulations have been given up, because, 
in course of time, it was argued that all the real advan- 
tage which the law attempted to secure for the public, 
could be obtained by competition among bakers and 
brewers. It is not, however, perfectly clear that com- 



140 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



petition does always make the cheapest price, or that 
competition acts at all in certain callings. 

They among my readers who live m towns are prob- 
ably aware that the price at which public carriages can 
;;e used is fixed by law. A London cabman, who is 
Licensed to carry persons in the carriage which he drives, 
is obliged, unless he have some reasonable excuse to the 
contrary, to carry any person who claims his services, and 
to carry him at a fixed price. The reason why this price 
has been fixed is, that the driver may not demand an ex- 
cessive charge from those who are in his carriage. It is 
plain, however, that the price at which he may be con- 
strained to carry them ought to cover his own mainten- 
ance and other wages — the cost of keeping his horse 
or horses, or repairing his carriage — of some return 
for the original cost of both horses and carriage — 01 
the risks which he runs that he may not be employed, 
and of any change which ma}- be expected to take 
place in the price of the food on which his horse or 
horses live. 

But there is a difference between fixing a price at 
which a man shall work, and obliging him to fix the 
price at which he will work, and giving public notice of 
it. It seems that the latter is the tairer course, and it 
has been adopted in the case which I have given. It is 
clearly just to the man who does the labor, and it is even 
better for those who use the service or convenience. If 
the law fixes the price, the person who is controlled by 
the law may be, and constantly is, induced to say that 
the law puts the price too low, and may appeal to the 
public for more than the law allows him. But if he 
fixes his own price, and is obliged to publish and keep 
to it, he cannot complain of unfairness, since it is his 



LAWS FIXING PRICES. 



141 



own will whether he chooses to work at the rate at 
at which he fixes his own labor. 

There are certain kinds of services in which the law 
is bound to fix the price. If it gives or permits a sole 
right of doing a necessary service, its duty is to regulate 
the rate at which the service is to be done. For in order 
that men should be free to fix the rate of that which 
they olfer for sale, they who may need to use what is 
sold ought to have the power of dealing where they 
like. There is no freedom of trade in a bargain where 
one is obliged to buy, and another, being the only person 
who is able to sell, is perfectly able to exact whatever 
price he likes. 

Hence the law T (or those to whom the law gives 
powers) fixes the highest price at which a railway shall 
carry passengers and goods. In reality, everybody must 
use the services of a railway, if he wishes to be carried 
conveniently from place to place, or to procure goods 
which have to be conveyed from a distance. It is true 
that if the railway directors fixed too high a price, they 
might check the use of that convenience which they sup- 
ply. But they would only check that use which people 
can make if they please, not the use which must be 
made. They might put an end to journeys- taken for 
pleasure, but those which must be undertaken for busi- 
ness would go on. Hence the law does not allow them 
the privilege of fixing and publishing whatever price 
they please to set, but decides what is the highest price 
which they can claim. For the reason which I have 
given before, this is no wrong — no interference with free 
exchange. Wherever one dealer has such an advantage 
over the other dealer as to be able to charge what may 
be called a famine price, the law may fairly interfere. 



LESSON XXXI. 



REGULATIONS OX PROFESSIONS. 

It was stated in a former lesson that, as a rule, people 
are allowed by the laws under which they live, to choose 
the calling in which they may get their living; and that 
the laws which grant this liberty, while in force in the 
United States from almost the beginning of its history, 
have only been very gradually passed in England, and 
do not hold good in many other countries. Even in 
England and with us there are certain callings in which 
the law does not allow persons to engage, whenever and 
however they like, but still maintains restrictions which 
were once general. 

They who engage, for example, in the two profes- 
sions of law and physic, are obliged under penalties — or 
disabilities which come to the same thing as penalties — 
to go through a course of training which in effect is just 
the same as that of apprenticeship to a trade or craft. 
A lawyer has to go through a regular course of study 
for his profession, and pass an examination before a com- 
mittee of lawyers appointed for the purpose, before he 
can be admitted to what is called the Bar, or the aesoci 
ation of lawyers of his State. And so a doctor or sur- 
geon is obliged to g : et experience in some other doctor's 



REGULATIONS OX PROFESSIONS. 



143 



or surgeon's business, to study at some public hospital, 
and also to pass an examination, before he is allowed to 
carry on business on his own account. 

Again, there are certain persons whom the Govern- 
ment employs, and whom it pays, either in wnole or 
in part, and from whom it exacts a proof that they are 
competent to do what they undertake. Schoolmasters 
appointed in schools which are brought under the con- 
trol of Government are required to satisfy certain officers 
of Government that they are fit to undertake the busi- 
ness of education, at least as far as their own knowledge 
is concerned. So persons who are employed to navigate 
the ships which belong to the nation are supposed to be 
put to the test of whether they know their business, and 
are able to prevent the ship from being lost. 

Xow it is easy to account for these last-named cases. 
If the nation employs labor, it has a right to know 
whether those who offer themselves for employment are 
fit to undertake that which they profess to do. In 
ordinary business, where the master's eye is everywhere, 
or ought to be everywhere, evidence supplied by others 
as to the fitness of those Avhom he hires may be useful, 
but is not necessary ; for the master or employer may be 
able to exercise his own judgment, not only to decide 
whether the person who wishes to work for him is fit, 
in point of knowledge, but also whether he is fit in point 
of power to use the knowledge which he possesses. 

The eye of the Government is not everywhere. 
Hence it is necessary to do the best which can be done 
— to find out as far as mere knowledge goes on the part 
of those who aspire to public employment, whether they 
are equal to the duties which they profess to be able to 
fulfil. Of course this is not every thing. It is one thing 



144 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



to know, another to use that which is known, and to turn 
it to the best account. There are some people who can 
manage to lay out the goods they have for sale in so 
clever a manner as to make, so to speak, five dollars 
worth of their own look as well as twenty-five dollars 1 
worth of another man's. And in just the same way 
people with very inferior powers and accomplishments 
may make a far more skilful and showy use of them 
than others who are possessed of far greater learning or 
information. 

But why should law interfere in order to supply 
proof that a lawyer or physician is able to do that 
which he professes to do ? Why is it more the duty of 
the State to prove that the one sells good advice about 
such rights as people possess in property, and the other 
good advice about their health, than to prove that a 
shoemaker knows how to make good shoes and a tailor 
good clothes ? Why undertake this duty, and not 
another duty, of providing that a grocer should know 
how to buy his sugar and cheese, a butcher buy good 
animals for meat ? 

In some shape or other, the law does provide a means 
for preventing the abuse of any trade or occupation. 
It supplies a police in case of fraud or adulteration — 
that is, of passing off articles as genuine or sound, 
when they are not so, of punishing those who sell bad 
or unwholesome provisions. It is the business of Gov- 
ernment to protect, as far as possible, all those whom 
it is bound to care for against force or fraud, and it does 
so with more or less success, and more or less zeal. 

There must be some special reason or reasons why 
the law exacts proof of skill in the case of the two 
professions which I have named. One of these refers 



REGULATIONS ON PROFESSIONS. 145 



directly to the public good, the other assists the same 
object in a less direct manner. 

Most people are fair enough judges of what they 
buy. There are certain goods, the quality of which 
every one of any experience knows. Such goods are 
provisions. So, again, it is no very difficult matter to 
find out whether a pair of shoes is worth what has been 
paid for them, or whether a suit of clothes has been 
properly made of such materials as the price will 
warrant. If the purchaser has been deceived by the 
tradesman, he has been wronged, and ought to be 
righted; but after all, the loss or inconvenience is not 
so serious as to require that the trader should be 
prohibited from carrying on his calling; or to justify 
ithe law in exacting proof that he ought to show his 
-Witness before he is allowed to pursue the calling. 

But in the case of the lawyer or physician, ignorance 
might cause ruin or death. It is not enough that the 
persons who use the services of those who are em- 
ployed in these professions may have a means provided 
them for being righted, in case their advisers have been 
so unskilful as to do them a great wrong ; it seems 
proper that precautions should be adopted in order to 
prevent, as far as possible, unskilfulness itself. 

The other reason is that there are callings in which 
it is expedient to strengthen the intelligence of those 
who practise them by appealing to their mutual honor. 
Schoolboys know that there are many acts which it 
would be almost impossible for a master to find out, 
but which would disgrace, or ought to disgrace, the 
whole school if they were committed. Now such acts, 
when the boys are worth anything, are prevented by 
the good sense, or honor of the boys themselves. 
7 



145 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



But a profession is thus far like a school. It can act 
together, and have a character of its own. There are 
many people who feel that if they disgrace their school 
or their profession, they are in the highest degree dis- 
gracing themselves. 



LESSON XXXII. 



FORBIDDEN CALLINGS. 

Some kinds of callings are absolutely forbidden. 
They are treated as in themselves illegal or unlawful; 
illegal, when the necessities of the State forbid persons 
to engage in an occupation which is not in itself dis- 
honest or vicious, unlawful when the calling cannot be 
entered on or practiced without doing some injury to 
society at large. I will try to illustrate what I have 
said. 

It has been stated several times that no reasonable 
law will prohibit or even control those persons who 
choose to devote their labor to agriculture. The more 
wheat or other grain is grown in any country, the more 
cattle, sheep, and pigs are reared, the better is it for the 
people at large. If the labor of the husbandman is 
devoted toward producing luxuries, or comforts, such 
a person is adding to the enjoyments of the people. 

Still there is one plant which the farmer in England 
and some other countries is forbidden to grow. This 
is tobacco. There is no reason in nature why a farmer 
should not cultivate tobacco, as well as turnips. But 
the English government collects a tax on tobacco, and 
this tax is so considerable, and adds so much to the 



148 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



price of the article, that a variety of restrictions or 
regulations must be put on its importation into the 
country. Now in order to save the revenue from a loss 
which might arise in case private persons grew this 
plant for their own use, or for sale, the cultivation oi 
tobacco is forbidden by law, except under such circum- 
stances as could not. possibly diminish the amount of 
the tax which is collected. 

I will take another case. There is no natural reason 
why private persons should not coin money. In ancient 
times they did so, though always after having obtained 
a license. There is not much more difficulty in stamp- 
ing gold, silver, or copper corns, than there is in stamp- 
ing metal buttons. If the money which such private 
persons issued were as good or as fine as that which the 
Government issues from the Mint, the public would be 
none the worse off, and some persons think it would be 
even better off. 

The restraint which is laid on the practice of coining 
— by which I do not mean putting bad money into cir- 
culation, which is one of the basest and meanest crimes 
which can be committed, but by which I mean the 
manufacture of as good money as comes out of the 
Mint — is partly imposed for the sake of the Mint itself, 
partly for the sake of the public. 

The price of everything in this country is measured 
by gold. We speak of dimes and cents, because these 
words are short or convenient ways of expressing frac- 
tions of a dollar. But a person who buys or sells any 
article for a dime, or a cent, really buys and sells for the 
tenth, or the one hundreth part of a dollar. Now if it 
be inconvenient to reckon in such fractions, it would be 
impossible to use such little bits of gold as would be 



FORBIDDEN CALLINGS. 



149 



worth what a cent represents, or even what a dime does. 
Some of such pieces would be so small as to be almost 
invisible, most of them would be constantly lost, and 
would, very rapidly wear out, It is therefore the prac- 
tice of this country, and of other countries, to use pieces 
of silver and bronze or copper to denote those fractions 
of a sovereign, or whatever else may be the measure of 
price. 

If the Government issues these pieces of silver and 
copper, and pledges itself to take them back at the rate 
of ten dimes, or one hundred cents to a dollar, these 
coins will be worth what they profess to be, even though 
the amount of silver or copper contained in them may 
not be actually worth the tenth and one hundredth part 
of the piece of gold we call a dollar. Now during the 
time that such pieces are in circulation, the Government 
is making a profit on the difference between the real and 
the nominal value of the silver and copper coins. This 
profit is devoted to two objects. It covers, in the first 
place, the cost of coining gold, the Mint being enabled 
to do this at no charge whatever. It covers the cost 
of the wear of silver and copper coins ; for however 
much worn silver coins are, the Government will ex- 
change these coins for new coins of full weight. The 
action of the Mint, therefore, is that of doing a great 
public service at no cost to the public* 

* At the date when this is written (June, 1872) gold and silver 
coins are not in use in the United States. They were used until 
the breaking out of the war in 1861, when paper currency, which 
had before been used for nothing* smaller than a dollar, was intro- 
duced for dimes, quarter dollars and half dollars. The credit of 
the Government having been depreciated by the risks and losses 
of the war, its paper "promises to pay" are not yet worth as much 



150 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



If private persons were allowed to coin silver and 
copper at their own will, part of the advantage which 
the Mint gets and gives to the public would become a 
matter of private profit. Were private coining carried 
out on a large scale, the Mint would be obliged to put 
a tax on the people in order to cover its expenses, or to 
charge the public for coining its gold. 

But there is a stronger reason for keeping the right 
of coining money in the hands of the Government. It. 
is very difficult for any person to find out when gold 
and silver are mixed with inferior metals, unless the lat- 
ter is mixed to a large amount. Unfortunately, when 
frauds cannot be found out, many people are ready to 
practise them, and there is good reason to believe that 
if freedom in coining were allowed, it would very soon 
become freedom for swindling. 

There are certain occupations which are not only 
illegal but unlawful — i.e., are so bad in themselves that 
they are not allowed at all. Thus, for example, English 
law forbids the establishment of gambling-houses. Xow, 
in one sense, there is a kind of gambling which nobody 
can prevent. If a man engages to buy any goods on 
what is called speculation — that is, in the hope that he 
will hereafter get a better price for what he buys than 
could be got at present — he may be said to gamble, for 
he is risking his property on an uncertainty. But no 

as gold and silver. Each year since the close of the war they 
have come a little nearer to the value of specie ; and doubtless in 
the course of a year or two, they will again be taken equally with 
specie for the full amount of their nominal value. "When this 
comes about, g-old and silver coins now hoarded up, or withdrawn 
from the country, will reappear, and be used as far as is found 
convenient. — Editor. 



FORBIDDEN CALLINGS. 



151 



law should ever interfere with this kind of speculation, 
partly because it is a necessary part of trade, partly be- 
cause the practice does a real good, by bringing about a 
thrifty use of articles when they are dear, and a prudent 
use of them when they are cheap. 

But the law interferes with gambling when no possi- 
ble good can come to the public by the practice, and 
when it is probable or certain that clever persons will 
cheat less shrewd people by apparent fairness. No pos- 
sible good can come to society by betting on the success 
of a particular horse in a race, while a great many worth- 
less people live, and a great deal of dishonesty is prac- 
tised in connection with such wagers. It is doubtful, 
indeed, whether it be wagering or drunkenness which is 
the most powerful cause of ruin or crime. Still there 
is a certain amount of openness in this kind of specula- 
tion. The case is far worse when certain parties set up 
a gaming-booth, the players at which must certainly lose, 
however fair the game may seem; or when some wager 
is laid on a conjuring trick, which the inexperienced 
cannot see through. On such practices as these the law 
lays penalties, not only because the public ought to be 
protected against cheats, but because it is a crime to 
cheat, and those who are cheated are tempted to dis- 
honesty by their losses. 



lessox xxxin. 



CALLINGS WHICH ARE UXDER A TOLICE. 

There are certain occupations, again, entrance into 
which is free, or nearly free to anybody who chooses to 
engage in them, but in which the persons who follow 
the calling are brought under stricter regulation than 
those who are engaged in ordinary trades or professions, 
and are rendered liable to police regulations. Some of 
these restraints are imposed in the interests of the reve- 
nue, some in the interests of the public. Of those which 
are imposed in the interests of the public, some respect 
its safety or comfort, some its morals or conduct. 

Of these occupations, the most notable instance or 
example is that of the persons who are engaged in the 
sale of fermented or intoxicating drinks. Such persons, 
before they can follow this calling, are obliged to get 
some evidence of their character. They are called on 
to pay a sum of money for permission to keep their shop 
open at all. They are compelled to close the place in 
which they carry on their business at certain hours of 
the night, and on Sundays during certain hours of 
the day. They are at all times liable to the visits of the 
police. If they break the rules under which they are 
allowed to carry on their trade, they may be disabled 
from carrying on their business at all, or in other words 



CALLINGS WHICH ARE UNDER A POLICE. 153 



be refused their license. It will be seen, therefore, that 
such persons are restrained or controlled in a great manv 
directions in which ordinary traders are free. 

These restraints are imposed partly in order to assist 
the morals and health of the people ; partly in order to 
prevent breaches of public order and crime. The police 
authority which is exercised over public-houses, was first 
established because it was thought to be a duty to keep 
people from some temptations to drunkenness But it 
is upheld quite as much because drunken people are apt 
to be violent, and becaue public-houses may be, and in- 
deed often are, places where crimes are hatched. Of 
eourse, such a use of them applies only to a very limited 
number, but unless the same regulation were extended 
to all, it would be impossible to deal with the cases in 
which the abuse might occur. Similarly, as the vendors 
of unwholesome drinks do a great mischief, it seems 
natural that the public should be protected against frauds, 
the effects of which might be very baneful. 

Again, there is another class of traders which is put 
under restraints nearly as strict as those laid on the 
keepers of public-houses. This trade is that of a pawn- 
broker. This sort of calling is, unfortunately, a very 
necessary one for the poor, whose fortunes are frequently 
so much depressed, that they are obliged to borrow 
small sums on the security of such property as they 
have. Hence it has been said that the pawnbroker 
may be called the poor man's banker. But the circum- 
stances which make such a person useful to those whose 
means are very narrow, render the shop of a pawn- 
broker a very convenient place for the sale of stolen 
goods. The pledge which is deposited must not be 
sold for a given time, and hence if the article has been 



154 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



stolen, and the pawnbroker is unsuspicious, still more 
if he is tacitly in league with the thief, all trace of the 
article may be lost for so long a time as, in a great many 
cases, to defy detection. For this reason this calling is 
one which is brought considerably within police control, 
the public good curtailing the freedom which trade 
should generally enjoy. 

Again, it is believed to be a necessary protection to 
public morals that theatres and places of public amuse- 
ment should be controlled. What might be amusing 
may easily become vicious, and may consequently do a 
great deal of mischief. There are a great many things 
which had better not be talked about, and many more 
which had better not be seen. It may therefore be 
right and proper that they who wish to talk about and 
exhibit such things should be checked from doing so. 

Some callings are regulated with a view to the public 
safety. No Government, unless it were wholly careless, 
would allow a manufactory of gunpowder to be set up 
in a crowded town, or indeed in any place but that in 
which the least possible injury could be done by any 
accident. So with manufacturers of fireworks and of 
similarly explosive articles. Even the storing of gun- 
powder in a town is — or ought to be — forbidden, or at 
least watched with great care. They who are familiar 
with danger get careless in taking proper precautions 
against it. It is said that half the terrible accidents in 
coal-mines are the direct consequence of carelessness, 
and that they would never have occurred if miners and 
owners of collieries were only commonly prudent, 

Lastly, there are certain callings on the product of 
which the Government collects a tax. It does so on all 
fermented liquors which are manufactured for sale 



CALLINGS WHICH ARE UNDER A POLICE. 



155 



Such, for example, are the trades of the brewer, the 
maltster, and the distiller. If there were no superin- 
tendence exercised over these callings, and they who 
engaged in them were allowed to return to the proper 
officers what they said they had produced, without any 
inquiry or scrutiny into the truth of their statements, it 
is very likely that some persons would state what was 
false. In such a case two wrongs are done. One of 
these is to the public at large, which has, by proper 
authority, imposed a tax on such and such articles, with 
a view to meet public expenses. The other is to the 
fair dealer, who having paid what is due on his own 
part, is trading against and along with a man who has 
taken an unfair advantage. 

In countries in which a great number of foreign 
articles are taxed, the business of the unfair shipper — 
or, as he is called, the smuggler — is followed by many 
persons. As to many there seems to be no justice in 
the laws which Governments impose for the sake of 
preventing the use of foreign-made goods, very many 
jDeople encourage the smuggler in his calling. Xow 
that, however, a wiser notion of trade commences to 
prevail, the smuggler is considered but a vulgar cheat, 
who not only defrauds the Government, but will most 
likely defraud those who are foolish enough to have 
dealings with him. 



LESSON XXXIV. 



POOR-LAWS. 

They who will not work for themselves have no 
right to live on the labor of others. To claim that they 
should so live, either wholly or partly, is to demand 
that the laws which govern society, and by which it 
subsists, should be suspended in their favor. 

But that which they have no right to claim, society, 
may be generous enough to grant, and that for very 
good reasons. In most countries the law allows no one 
to perish for want of the necessaries of life, if the 
destitute person make application to those who are 
appointed to the duty of relieving this distress; in 
other words, the relief of the poor, by means of a great 
public charity, is established by law. Of course the law 
intends that this charity should not be abused; that 
persons should not have the assistance unless they are 
really destitute : that it should be only of the neces- 
saries of life, and that the relief should not be of such 
a character as to make people careless or improvident. 

The laws of most civilized countries then, acknowl- 
edge that every living person has a right to the means 
of life. It is probable that the origin of this rule of our 
law was a sense of religious duty. But the custom is 
defended for other reasons. To see human misery, and 



POOR-LAWS. 



157 



to allow it to be unrelieved, is apt to harden the heart, 
to make men cruel. Now it is better that this relief 
should be given on system, rather than by the hand ot 
private charity, which is often indiscreet, and must be 
partial. Besides, even where the relief of distress is 
very sparingly allowed by law, it is found necessary to 
check besting*. Again, since the mass of those who 
obtain relief have passed or are passing a life of toil, 
and as it often happens that the wages received are not 
in proportion to the work which has been done, and its 
value, it is thought that they who have worked for others 
should live, partly at least, on the labor of others. 
Again, there are many misfortunes which no human fore- 
sight can prevent, and these, it is said, common humanity 
should constrain us to succor. It is moreover asserted 
that society is saved from risks of a very serious kind 
as long as destitute persons are not made desperate and 
therefore dangerous. 

There is much force in these arguments. It is wor- 
thy of note that in those countries where distress is not 
relieved by law, another claim is set up — the right to 
work or employment. There are many who say that as 
long as people are willing to work, society or the State 
ought to find them occupation. But there is a great 
deal of difference between these two demands — every- 
body has a right to subsist : everybody has a right to 
work. 

If you have read this little book to any advantage, 
you will have seen that by far the largest number of 
people in every country do work; that they work best 
when they choose for themselves that kind of labor for 
which they find themselves most fit, and that any attempt 
on the part of Government to parcel out work for each 



158 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



person is no very wise act. A man with a great estate, 
or a great business, often works very hard indeed — per- 
haps harder by far than any who labor for ordinary 

wages. 

Xow if this right to labor were maintained, every- 
body who is willing and able to work should be pro- 
vided with his own special kind of industry. It is not 
sufficient only that that the carpenter, the mason, the 
compositor, the tailor, the shoemaker, the baker, and 
others who are occupied in manual employments, should 
be found work; but other persons must be equally cared 
for — the doctor ought to be supplied with patients, the 
lawyer with clients, the shopkeeper with customers, the 
teacher with pupils, the author with readers of his books. 
I do not think it will be difficult for you to see that snch 
an undertaking would induce utter confusion — is, indeed, 
a manifest absurdity. It will be plain also, that under 
such circumstances, most of the motives which induce 
men to improve their work would be taken away. 

If it be answered that they who make this proposal 
do not intend their rule to apply to any but certain kinds 
of labor, then it is plain that they are asking that cer- 
tain workmen should live on the labor of other work- 
men, and that they are attempting to draw a line which 
cannot be drawn with fairness. For unless some prin- 
ciple be laid down which shall decide what kind of 
laborers must be provided with employment, all that 
the proposal means is that certain persons should be 
treated with favor at the expense of other persons. 

There is one danger attending the law which relieves 
the destitute. I have already spoken of it. when I said 
that it may make people careless or improvident. To 
take away the motives to foresight and thrift is a serious 



POOR-LAWS. 



159 



evil, and there is no doubt that there have been times 
when assistance has been given so indiscreetly that work- 
ing men have been degraded by it. 

The only way in which this danger can be avoided 
is by making the acceptance of relief very irksome to 
those who receive it, while they are able to work, by 
raising up a wholesome feeling that it is disgraceful for 
strong men and women to get their living at the expense 
of other people, and only a little less disgraceful for 
persons not to provide, when they are strong and in full 
work, against the risks of sickness and want of employ- 
ment. If working men had only common prudence and 
forethought, there would be very little real poverty in 
this country. Distress does not often come because 
there are too many workmen for the employment that 
might be got, but because the workman lives from hand 
to mouth. 

Those poor persons are most to be pitied, and have 
the best title to public charity, who are not themselves 
to blame for the poverty in which they are placed. Such 
are the destitute and orphan children of the poor. Such 
are also a great many women, employment for whom is 
scanty and ill-paid. Perhaps in such cases the law might 
incline a little towards finding a field for labor. Xow it 
is not always easy to find such labor at home ; but there 
are many colonies and territories where women's labor 
is very scarce, and where children, who are just begin- 
ning to be able to work, would be taken and well cared 
for. It is not proper to send vicious or idle people to 
a newly-settled country, but such a country is just the 
place for those who are willing to work, and find little 
room for themselves at home. 



LESSON XXXV. 



THE PROTECTIONS OF THE WEAK. 

We are told that the existing races of animals have 
survived, or have been changed from ancient forms 01 
life, because they have had certain advantages of form 
or structure, by which they have been enabled to live 
while other kinds have perished. This may be a very 
good account of the way in winch most animals have 
successfully struggled for existence, but it does not cor-, 
respond with the history of human civilization. 

There have been times in which the strong habit- 
ually oppressed the weak; in which inferior races of 
men — that is, those nations which had less strength, or 
skill in war — have been enslaved and destroyed by su- 
perior or more powerful tribes, in which therefore the 
might of the strongest formed the rule of human life. 
But these practices prevailed in barbarous ages, and 
are justly condemned by good sense as well as by hu- 
manity. 

As regards man, there is just so much truth in the 
theory, that certain races grow weaker or disappear 
before others. Thus the red man in America seems to 
be slowly perishing before the white. So does the 
black in Australia and the Maori in New Zealand. But 
there are other peoples which are able to exist and 



POOR-LAWS 



161 



thrive, even when they are brought into contact with 
the most highly-civilized races, or are placed in the 
most unfavorable circumstances. Thus, the negro does 
not fail before the white man in Africa, his own home, 
or in those parts of the American continent to which he 
has been forcibly carried. Xor has there ever been any 
race which has been, one would have thought, so con- 
stantly within the risk of being destroyed by violence 
as the Jewish : but the Jews present one of the highest 
types of civilization and strength. 

The more thoroughly men act on the principles of 
social science, and on the laws which govern society, the 
more tender are they of those who are weak and help- 
less. The reason is plain. The spirit of civilization is 
that of law, and the first business of law is to protect the 
weak against the strong — that is, to resist the operation 
of that tendency which has been said to have selected in 
course of time the races of animals which exist in the 
world. For the strength of social life consists in the 
helplessness of each man apart from his fellow-men. An 
individual in a civilized society strives, as I told you at 
first, to do one thing only in the best possible way. A 
savage is obliged to do every thing for himself. In 
order that the first may live in comfort, he should be 
surrounded by as many persons as can also live in com- 
fort. In order that the savage may thrive and live in 
plenty, there should be as few persons as possible to 
share existence with him. 

The willingness to protect the weak ^s no doubt, 
then, derived from a sense of self-interest. Insecurity 
affects everybody more or less, the mass of men most 
of all. Hence it is often necessary in a civilized country 
for those who are well-to-do to seek how they may bet- 



162 



SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



ter the condition of those who are badly off, because the 
neglect of such a course of action brings inconvenience 
or loss or evil to those who might be supposed to have 
no connection with the fortunes of others. 

For example, if society were governed only by the 
interest of the strongest, and if it did not signify what 
became of the weak, provided that interest was served, 
there would be no necessity for the proper administra- 
tion of justice. But the wealthiest person in a civilized 
community needs the protection of the law as much as, 
perhaps more than, an ordinary workman. His proper- 
ty, if it were not for the equal protection which the law 
affords, might be exposed to injury, rapine, or robbery 
from a thousand quarters. Unguarded by law, he is 
helpless in the extreme. Hence it has always happened 
in the history of the various steps by which we have 
gained our social and civil liberties, that the richest men 
have had to make common cause with the people. 

Let us take another example. In times bygone no- 
body troubled himself, except so far as he was himself 
concerned, with the laws of health. Two centuries ago 
London was wasted by the plague, year after year. The 
cause was the great filthiness of the people. Since that 
time England has been visited with several diseases, 
which have been more or less deadly. In time peo- 
ple began to notice that the worst ravages of these dis- 
orders occurred in places where no attention was paid 
to cleanliness. At last it has been distinctly understood 
that there are very few complaints of an infectious kind 
which cannot be prevented by attention to certain rules, 
and that if persons would abide by these rules many 
plagues would disappear. 

It is not enough, however, that this or that man 



POOR-LAWS. Ig3 

should regularly wash himself, wear clean linen, or other 
clothing, take care to live in a house which is kept pure, 
and provide himself with wholesome food and water ; it 
is found to be of importance that his neighbor should do 
too. Hence the public health has come to be a matter 
of great consideration, and although much remains to 
be done before cleanliness is universal, there is a great 
difference between the present and the past. We have 
found out at last that the best way to keep one's self in 
safety is to better the condition of one's neighbor. 

There is not a single law of nature which is contrary 
to or inconsistent with any other law. Take, if you 
choose, society, and consider the members of it as pur- 
suing only their private interest, and you will find that 
they will pursue it best, if they follow exactly the course 
of action which duty would bid them adopt; that vice 
and loss are the same things ; that virtue and gain cor- 
respond in the long run. In the same way it will be 
discovered that the laws of health are only another form 
of the laws of prudence and good sense ; that what is 
foolish is wrong, and that what is wise is right, 

But if this be the case, how is it that the world is so 
full of vice, crime, misery, poverty ? It is because people 
are always preferring the present to the future, neglect- 
ing what conscience prompts and experience affirms, for 
the sake of some immediate temptation or pleasure. It 
is the faculty of man to remember in order that he may 
foresee, l^or can people begin the practice of foresight 
too young. At first they use the wise and affectionate 
experience of their elders. In time they find out that 
what was at* first without meaning or reason to them is 
full of truth and order ; and that if they please they can 
see and work with the truth and wisdom which they 
have learned. 



LESSON XXXVI. 



EttlGRATIOX. 

Let it be supposed that too many persons are living 
in any country to be comfortable, or even to subsist 
decently, either because some sudden scarcity has oc- 
curred, or because some dearth of employment has 
arisen. How far can such persons be put into a position 
to better themselves by emigrating to colonies or new 
settlements ? 

There is one way in which a country may be relieved 
of an excess of inhabitants. A whole slice, so to speak, 
of the community may be taken — from the highest and 
richest personages down to the poorest and lowest— and 
this may be transplanted bodily to the new country. In 
such a scheme there must be some persons of all ranks, 
conditions and callings. But this means of relieving 
any community of an excess of persons has never been 
adopted in modern times ; it used to be done anciently. 

Now it is quite clear that society would be all the 
better if it could get rid of its worst people. At one 
time the Government of England used to carry out such 
a plan ; but it has now abandoned it. It is plainly wrong 
to take or transport such persons to a place where other 
and honest people live. It is the same sort of thing as 
putting all one's refuse into another person's house. 
And even if no honest people lived in the settlement, it 



EMIGRATION. 



165 



is a very serious or dangerous act to try to make a 
colony of the worst kind of people. 

Next, it would be a good thing if all the idle people 
could go ; but it. would not be right to force them, and 
it is perfectly clear that they will not do so of their own 
accord. There is no room for idle people in a new set- 
tlement. They would find it difficult to get such enjoy- 
ments as are to be got in a country where there is a 
crowd, and where any one who spends is welcome. But 
it is clear that idle people, and those who follow callings 
which add nothing to wealth, or who exercise no profit- 
able labor, are the plainest examples of an excess of 
persons. They do no real work, and they compete 
against others for the means of life. But it is also clear 
that the colonists would not care to have them. 

Nor would those go who cannot work for their own 
living. This is another class of persons who are in 
excess. If there were no inmates of workhouses, it is 
plain that the country would be the better off; but no 
society would be better off by gaining those who are 
obliged to be inmates of workhouses, because they can- 
not get their oAvn living. It is not easy to get rid of 
thieves, idlers, and paupers. 

A colony is anxious to take those only who are wil- 
ling to work, and able to work with advantage. Many 
people are willing to work, but unluckily their work is 
not wanted. 

It will always, for instance, take agricultural laborers. 
The reason is clear : the natural industry of a colony is 
agriculture. A laborer who can do agricultural work in 
all its branches is always serviceable, but in a colony he 
is worth any pains to get. It is unfortunate for such 
laborers that they are usually so poor that they cannot 



166 SOCIAL ECOXOM1 

get away; generally so ignorant of anything but the 
work which they do so well, that they do not know how 
to better themselves. But there is no doubt that if they 
did leave this country it would be a gain to them. It 
would be no advantage to the country which they leave. 

A handy artisan, like a carpenter or mason, and 
especially such an artisan as can do a number of things, 
is, after the agricultural laborer, the best sort of person 
to get on in a new settlement. His work is always 
wanted, he can get regular employment ; and if, in addi- 
tion to what he actually knows, he is also drilled so well 
in what I called in a former lesson the master-knowledge, 
that he can easily learn how to do other things, he is 
still more sure to succeed. 

A jack-of-all- trades in a thickly-peopled country is 
not very likely to prosper; but a jack-of-all-trades in a 
new country, provided he be industrious and honest, has 
every chance of success. 

Again, a person who is able to get his living in a 
thickly-peopled country, will very often find that there is 
no place for him in a new settlement, He may be 
honest, industrious, intelligent ; but he may find no room 
for his work, his character, or his abilities. The reason 
for this is as follows : — 

You have learned in former lessons how it is that in 
a country like our own, the division of employments is 
carried out to the fullest extent. It is discovered that 
the greatest quickness and power is attained, when each 
person does one thing, or a part of one thing. Nov the 
greater the quickness and power, the greater is the 
cheapness; or, in other w T ords, the more fully is the 
article on which the workman is employed, supplied for 
the wants of those who need it. 



EMIGRATION. 



167 



But in a new country no such rule holds. In course 
of time, no doubt, the same cause which brings about 
this division of employment will work in such countries. 
They will then become like such places as those which 
supply new-comers to new settlements ; but till such a 
state of things takes place, the most useful persons are 
not those who can do a part of one thing, but those who 
can do the whole of a great many things ; and thus the 
more completely persons are trained to do one thing, or 
the part of one thing only, the less fitted are they to 
become colonists in a new settlement. 

Xow what is the result of these facts ? It is that old 
and fully-settled countries will be found to stand to these 
new countries in much the same position that the inhab- 
itants of a town do to those of the country. Each does 
the other a great service. The town makes the comforts 
of life easier of attainment ; the country supplies the 
necessaries of life more. regularly and certainly. If men 
really understood their own interest and their own good, 
they would look on the whole civilized world as one 
country, the inhabitants of which are obliged to discover 
that they can gain their own ends best when they do 
most for the service and good of others. 



THE END. 



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